Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

ISIS Launches App to Recruit Children | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
Select Page
Media ID: 55350953
Caption:

Boys play with a gun in the Douma neighborhood of Damascus. Reuters


Cairo- A newly released report in Egypt has warned of “Huroof,” a mobile app that ISIS’s propaganda outlet has launched to teach children the Arabic alphabet with the aid of guns, tanks and cannons.

The app that is currently available on Android devices, seeks to recruit militants from an early age by teaching them the alphabet.

An Egyptian source said that ISIS is trying to create a new generation of indoctrinated child suicide bombers.

“Such children are wining cards for ISIS, which recruits them via social media such as Facebook and Twitter to join the organization’s ranks,” said the source.

The source told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that “recruiting children and planting hatred and extremism in their minds has become the only option for the organization to guarantee its survival and the dissemination of its thoughts.”

The children are more destructive than the current militants because they haven’t coexisted with people who adopt the true values of life. They are being thought hatred at an early age by being trained on violence.

The report that was issued by a department belonging to Egypt’s Dar al-Iftaa said “the app seeks to teach children the meanings of violence and fighting” under the pretext of teaching them the alphabet.

In the app, the branding of stars, balloons and flowers mask military themes, and “tank,” “gun,” “cannon,” “bullet” and “rocket” among the vocabulary taught.

ISIS earlier released a video of child assassins being trained at a terror camp in Syria.

But the Dar al-Iftaa report warned against brainwashing children, and called for their protection from such apps.

It called for a follow-up on apps viewed by children so that they don’t fall victim to such a bad publicity.

The report also urged the international community to launch an intensified electronic confrontation with ISIS, which has immense and unprecedented technological capabilities.