ISIS trained children to behead victims using doll's head attached to mannequin
New reports have revealed that the Islamic State trained children as young as six years old to behead their victims using a doll's head attached to mannequins.
The mannequin with a rubber child's head was discovered face-down in the ruins of the Iraqi city of Hatra, which was liberated from ISIS last week.
"This figure was for teaching children how to slaughter people. They showed them how to use a knife to sever the head on this figure, so they would know how to do it on a real person," Iraqi special forces soldier Ahmed told The Daily Mail.
"Then they taped the head back onto the mannequin to give the children further practice," he added.
Iraqi soldiers found a similar mannequin with a removable head inside a temple, lodged on top of an ancient statue that was beheaded by the militants. The priceless statue had been used by the militants and its recruits as a target for practice.
"They chopped off all the heads of the statues here and they shot out the sculpted faces of ancient gods and goddesses high up on the walls that they couldn't reach," Ahmed noted.
The historic city was liberated on Thursday after Iraq's Hashd Shaabi, or Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU) launched a surprise attack on the area that has been under the control of ISIS for almost three years.
The militants used the mannequins as training aides while also banning its use in clothes shops, telling shopkeepers that such figurines were idolatrous.
Uniforms with a velcro patch showing the ISIS black flag that were designed to fit a child as young as six or seven years old were found near the ancient Pagan temple of the Sun Goddess, where they are trained to be cold-blooded killers.
The terror group has released several videos showing the children, dubbed the "Cubs of the Caliphate," training with weapons and carrying out brutal executions of adults.
A video released in January featured a 10-year-old child cutting the throat of a victim at an abandoned amusement park in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor.
Special Forces soldier Ammar said that ISIS recruited children as well as adults because they know that Iraqi forces will hesitate to kill children.
Residents in the adjacent modern town of Hatra said they had effectively been held as prisoners for almost three years because they are prohibited from leaving except to visit relatives in nearby ISIS-controlled towns.
UNESCO welcomed the liberation of Hatra, saying the ancient site, which is what remains of the capital of the Arab Kingdom, had been "one of the symbols of the cultural cleansing plaguing the Middle East."
The organization said that an emergency assessment mission will be sent to the site as soon as security conditions allowed.