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ISIS amputates hands of two children for refusing to kill captives

Displaced children who fled Islamic State militants from Mosul play at Deepaka camp in the northwest of Erbil, Iraq. | Reuters/Alaa Al-Marjani

The Islamic State punished two children who refused to carry out an order to execute civilians by cutting off their hands.

"The Islamic State's leaders issued orders to train a group of children on fighting in the group's camps in Nables neighborhood, in the western side of Nineveh," one source said, as reported by Iraqi News.

"Meanwhile, members of the Islamic State terrorist group amputated the hands of two children, for refusing to carry out the execution sentence on two civilians in front of their families," the source continued, adding that the children were between the ages of 10 and 12.

ISIS has published several videos showing children carrying out executions of captives. A video released last month featured a toddler shooting a prisoner dead in a ball pit at an abandoned children's playground. In another segment, a boy was seen sawing off the head of a man and proceeds to wipe off the knife on the victim's shirt.

Last December, the terror group released a video showing child jihadists hunting down "apostates" in a live-fire training exercise. The prisoners, whose hands were tied behind their backs, tried to elude the children in an abandoned building.

ISIS has also been known to show no mercy towards children. Last year, a Syrian woman recounted how the terror group killed hundreds of children in her village.

Alice Assaf, whose son was killed by the militants, said that she and other villagers witnessed the execution of people from 200 different families. She later heard that the terror group killed at least six men and around 250 children at a nearby bakery.

"Later on, we heard that the militants grabbed six strong men working at the bakery and burned them inside the oven," Assaf said. "After that, they caught some 250 kids and kneaded them like dough in the bakery dough machine," she added.

She noted that the children that were killed in the bakery were no older than four. She also said that the jihadis started throwing children off the balcony in order to deter the army from entering the town.

A recent report published by the Quilliam Foundation revealed that ISIS is able to recruit refugee children by providing money or food.