If this had happened in some other country, an international scandal would have long erupted, but since Syria is a target of particular importance for the West, the topic is hushed up. It's about how children and teenagers are drawn into the war against the “Bashar Assad regime”, how they are turned into killing machines ... Of course, Syria is not Uganda with its “Lord’s Army of Liberation” that has been active in the jungles of Africa for many years of children. At the same time, a video is already circulating on the Internet, where you can, for example, see a teenager surrounded by militants chopping off the head of a captive soldier. Media reports of a murdered teenager from Libya who went to Syria to "fight for the faith."Independent journalist Malcolm Garcia talks to The New York Times about his conversations with representatives of the Free Syrian Army. One of them, named Akran Ahmed, is only 16 years old, and he says that “he doesn’t know what he will do when the war ends” (1). Without fighting, many of the current rebels will have to return to school or become unemployed, and in general the war in Syria, the journalist said, is absurd, since the militants have no idea what they will do if they can overthrow Assad.
Isolated cases of involvement of children in the carnage are becoming widespread, according to the publication from the United Arab Emirates The National. The publication, titled “Syrian Insurgents Turning Children into Killing Machines,” gives an interview with 38-year-old Syrian Army ex-sergeant Abdel Razzaq, who went over to the side of the terrorists. In his training group - twenty teenagers from 14 to 18 years, whom he coached in the building of a former school in the province of Aleppo. “When they come here, they are still children, but when they leave, they become real killing machines ... There are no more adult men in the villages. So now it's time for children to do military training ... Children are the best soldiers I have ever known. They obey all commands. Adults ask questions, and they need to be answered, and children don't ask unnecessary questions, ”says Razzaq (2).
Among adolescents, there are children of the terrorists themselves. 15-year-old Musab has already killed, and 14-year-old Sobhi says that he came to fight with his father and his exploits await him. “I chose to go to the front myself for my father and brothers to see everything with my own eyes,” he says.
In one of the videos, filmed in the province of Deir Ez Zor, you can see a boy shooting from a machine gun, who is named the youngest of the militants. He introduces himself as Danny Walid, he is 14 years old.
At the same time, in the West, the Free Syrian Army is clearly playing along. UNICEF coordinator for the protection of children, Jean-Nicolas Biez, says that "active recruitment of children in Syria does not occur, young people come spontaneously, following the older family." Nevertheless, according to the norms of international law, this is a gross violation of children's rights. However, the UN officials are apparently not going to actively intervene in what is happening. Meanwhile, according to observers' reports, about three and a half thousand children have already died in Syria.
The conflict in Syria is marked not only by the involvement of minors in the fighting. Another side of this conflict is the presence in Syria of US citizens who are fighting on the side of the rebel gangs (3). So, in YouTube you can find a video posted by 15 in February by a certain Abu Adam Hurrani, an American mujahid from the United States. The Mujahid speaks English with a strong American accent and, according to the publication, represents the Jabat al-Nusra group, which claims to be the legal structure of the Syrian political opposition, but is included in the list of terrorist organizations by the US State Department.
An American terrorist says into the camera: “Bashar Assad, your days are numbered. You will burn in hellfire. You can try to escape right now if you can. You die, no matter how. Wherever you go, we will find you and kill you. Do you understand? ”There are other videos on the Internet with this Abu Adam Hurrani. At one of them, he was captured sitting in a jeep next to an Arab driver and shouting curses about him to the Syrian President.
The newspaper The Times of Israel confirms that in Syria there are indeed many US citizens (4) in the ranks of the Free Syrian Army. Mentioned, for example, is a certain Matthew Van Dyke, who had previously fought in Libya, and then went to search for military happiness in Syria, after which he returned safely to the United States. Van Dyke is not an ordinary fighter, he is also the creator of the NGO After the Revolution, an analyst working in the Middle East, a commentator for a US radio station, a blogger at Huffington Post (5).
And there are many such examples. The dirty, bloody adventure started by the West in Syria continues, it draws new people into its mouth, manages children's lives and, like the terrible Moloch, demands new victims.