Video - Killed child soldiers, wrecked tanks: witness report from Palmyra battlefield

ADF rebels: Kidnapping children and tricking men into establishing caliphate in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

ADF rebels: Kidnapping children and tricking men into establishing caliphate in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. (IBtimes). HT: TracTerrorism.

The Ugandan-led Islamist armed group Allied Democratic Forces, known as ADF-Nalu, may be looking to establish a caliphate in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where it has operated since the late 1990s.

The merger between puritanical Muslim Ugandans from the Sunni Islamic missionary movement Tablighi Jamaat and the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (Nalu), was masterminded by Ugandan rebel leader Jamil Mukulu in western Uganda after they found themselves marginalised following the fall of the dictator Idi Amin.

Pushed out of Uganda, the religious crusaders settled in the dense forest of DRC's eastern borderlands during former President Mobutu Sese Seko's reign (1965-1997).

Three decades down the line, the mysterious rebel group is reported to be using terror tactics - abductions and killings - to establish a caliphate in the eastern province of North Kivu, where fighters claim to own land.

"They told us that these lands belong to them, that they have documents proving that they had bought [the lands] around Beni during the Mobutu era," Adam Kyala Lungalunga, 59, who was kidnapped in November told IBTimes UK. "They want to claw back the authority of these lands."

Beni-based Nicaise Kibel Bel Oka, editor of the newspaper Les Coulisses recently claimed the ADF were exercising "barbarity in the name of sharia law" - the Islamic law. "Islamic terrorism is already very fierce [in the region]," Bel Oka said, adding that the rebels refer to their base as 'Medina'

Like many Islamist sub-groups operating in East Africa and across the Sahel, Bin Hangi confirmed ADF also recruit children. "In their ranks we know that there are children. When they can't recruit them using deceit, they kidnap them by force. We have documented how pupils are kidnapped on their way to school or in the schools. That's how children are enrolled in these groups."Read the full story here.

Isis paying smugglers up to $2,000 in recruitment drive among child refugees in camps.

Isis paying smugglers up to $2,000 in recruitment drive among child refugees in camps. (Guardian).

Sunday 5 February 2017 00.04 GMT Last modified on Sunday 5 February 2017 00.08 GMT

Islamic State is paying the smugglers’ fees of child refugees in a desperate attempt to attract new recruits, according to a report highlighting the potential vulnerability of unaccompanied minors to radicalisation.

The report, from counter-extremism thinktank Quilliam, also says that an estimated 88,300 unaccompanied children – identified by the European Union’s police agency Europol as having gone missing – were at risk of being radicalised.

Citing failures in the approach of Europe, particularly the UK, towards protecting child refugees travelling alone, the report, published on Monday, warns that jihadi groups, including Isis and Boko Haram, have attempted to recruit within refugee camps using financial incentives, as well as working with the people smugglers.

Quilliam said that Isis had offered up to $2,000 (£1,600) to recruit within camps in Lebanon and Jordan. Last year, Jordanian special forces reportedly found what they described as an Isis sleeper cell inside a refugee camp near Irbid, north Jordan. Additional reports indicated that Isis had tried to recruit refugees by supplying food previously withheld from camp residents.

Researchers identified a number of risk “hotspots” where refugees and young people were particularly vulnerable to recruitment by extremist organisations. One of the most acute of these is the north African coast where Quilliam said Isis fighters have offered £800 to those who join them.

Another so-called hotspot is the south Libyan town of Qatrun, where reports have indicated that Isis, which is believed to have between 4,000 to 6,000 fighters in the region, has waived £450 smuggler fees to allow refugees to travel north if they joined its ranks. Read the full story here.

Video - Teens Fighting with ISIS Captured by Syrian Democratic Forces.

Footage taken by the Syrian Democratic Forces shows their capture of three children who had been fighting alongside ISIS. The children tell their captors that they had been coerced into fighting with ISIS. One of the militia fighter says that the children are under 15 years, but that ISIS "plant in their heads the idea that we are pigs and apostates" and "sends them to the front in order to fight us." Syrian Democratic Forces member: Surrender! You too, lie down! Lie down, quickly now! ...

Islamic State's Child Soldiers 'the Caliphate Cubs' : First Come the Sweets, Then the Beheadings.

Islamic State's Child Soldiers 'the Caliphate Cubs' : First Come the Sweets, Then the Beheadings. (Spiegel).

The Islamic State is holding thousands of young boys captive in Syria and Iraq, where it is teaching them the Koran and how to become deadly child soldiers. 

In a tent in a refugee camp in Dohuk, at the base of ochre-colored mountains, Amir and Ahmed, 15 and 16, unroll their mats on the floor to forget the terrible memories. It's a cool autumn evening, and they prop themselves up with cushions and turn on the TV. The two brothers fled from their captivity at the hands of the Islamic State (IS) six months ago. Now all they want to do is watch some cartoons.

The brothers flip through the channels. IS also has its own propaganda station, which viewers can easily receive here, in Kurdish northern Iraq. Ahmed, holding the remote control in his hand, suddenly calls out: "There we are Amir! That's us!" The brothers recognize themselves on the screen: dressed in black outfits, their faces masked, with other child soldiers during combat training in Mosul.


It is now spring, and that evening spent in front of the television is a few months in the past. Ahmed and Amir, sitting close together, talk about it in the same small tent in the camp. Ahmed, the older of the two, speaks in a hoarse voice about their time with IS, while Amir stares at the floor. "They gave us drugs, and we believed everything after that," they say. 

Ahmed and Amir were held hostage by IS for nine months, imprisoned in a military camp in Mosul, the IS stronghold in Iraq. There the terrorist organization used beatings and weapons to train them to become child soldiers, or "lion cubs of the caliphate," as IS puts it. The "lion cubs" blow themselves up to kill supposed infidels. They witness beheadings, to learn how they are done. They donate blood for injured adult fighters. And they turn in traitors.

It is difficult to determine how many child soldiers Islamic State is training. Experts estimate that about 1,500 boys are serving the terrorist group in Iraq and Syria. Some are born to the militants. In fact, more than 31,000 women are currently pregnant in IS-held territory. Other children arrive with their parents from abroad when the parents join the jihadist movement. In many cases, the "lion cubs" are also children of local fighters or orphans who join IS voluntarily. Others, like Ahmed and Amir, are kidnapped. Read the full story here.

Video - Iran regime broadcasts video to recruit 'child soldiers' for Syria war.

NCRI – The Iranian regime, faced with a crisis in recruiting fighters to defend Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, has embarked on a new propaganda campaign to encourage children to join the war in Syria.

The Iranian regime’s state media have been broadcasting a new promotional clip entitled ‘Martyrs who defend the sacred shrine’ in recent days encourage young children to take part in the war.

The video has been produced by the official Bassij Music House, the propaganda arm of the regime’s paramilitary Bassij, a branch of the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

In parts of this clip, young children are shown singing:
“Let’s rise up to save the sacred shrine.
I have joined [Imam] Hossein’s army division.
… I have a warrant from the [Imam Ali] to defend the sacred shrine.
On my leader [Ali Khamenei’s] orders I am ready to give my life.
The goal is not just to free Iraq and Syria;
My path is through the sacred shrine [in Syria], but my goal is to reach Jerusalem.
… I don’t regret parting from my country;
In this just path I am wearing my martyrdom shroud.
… From Mashhad [north-east Iran], I will walk on foot to Damascus.
I am like the bird who flocks to the sacred shrine.”

The slogans and images in the video are reminiscent of the regime’s recruitment effort during the Iran-Iraq war after it faced a public backlash in recruiting soldiers, which led the mullahs to instead use young Iranian children as human waves to clear the minefields. None of its efforts at the time bore fruit, and eventually the regime’s founder Khomeini was forced to accept a ceasefire, which he described as a “chalice of poison.”

In the Iranian regime’s lexicon, “defending the sacred shrine” is the equivalent of deploying the forces of the IRGC and more recently the regular army to Syria to defend the Assad regime as he massacres the people of Syria. This is while the majority of the Iranian regime’s casualties are near Aleppo which is several hundred kilometers away from the holy Shiite shrines near Damascus.

Commenting on the broadcasting of the new promotional clip, Shahin Gobadi of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said:

“This promotional clip first of all manifests the anti-human nature of the regime which seeks to even mobilize the children of its own loyalists as cannon fodder. This and similar measures by the mullahs’ regime indicate a strategy deadlock for the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Syria which is Tehran’s main hub for exporting terrorism and fundamentalism to the region. They point to widespread dissatisfaction in Iran of the regime’s warmongering in Syria and its internal isolation. After having attempted to deploy its IRGC forces and foreign militias including Afghans, Lebanese and Iraqis, and even its regular army units, the regime has resorted to recruiting children to the war fronts.”

“But this disgraceful and inhumane act will not bring the regime out of a deadlock, just as it failed to do so during the Iran-Iraq war. The difference is that this time the regime has already used up all its strategic resources, and it is in a far more fragile state,” Mr. Gobadi added.

Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the NCRI, on April 17 told the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat that the Iranian regime is putting all its effort into saving the Assad regime even while it knows that it is fighting for a lost cause

The Netherlands to Include minors, so called 'Caliphate cubs' in Terrorist Lists.

The Netherlands to Include minors, so called 'Caliphate cubs' in Terrorist Lists. (VolksKrant).

The Netherlands will include in their terrorist lists children starting from the age of nine, who left areas controlled by Daesh and came back to the Netherlands with their families, Dutch newspaper Volkskrant wrote on Wednesday, referring to the General Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands (AIVD).

Children taking part in the conflict in Syria can be a considered a threat from the age of 9 years and will henceforth be added to the terrorism list in the Netherlands, intelligence service AIVD confirmed to the Volkskrant.

In a publication released in January, the AIVD revealed that from the age of 9 years boys in the ISIS caliphate are sent to military training camps. They are trained in firearms and stabbing weapons, practice executions and swear allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. Girls of that age start wearing veils in public and are trained in how to assist their future husband in the armed struggle.

The AIVD believes that this is enough to consider these children dangerous, also to the Netherlands if kids travel back with their family. The intelligence service will therefore give each Dutch child known to be in the conflict zone its own file and register them on the terrorism list. That information can also be shared with other services.

So far about 250 adults left from the Netherlands to go to the ISIS conflict zone in Syria. 42 of them were killed and 40 returned. According to the AIVD there are also about 70 Dutch minors in the caliphate. Hmmmm......Someone been reading my blog? How many times in the past have i warned of the possible threat of these 'Caliphate Cubs'?

 Related? 

Europol : "10,000 refugee children are missing".

ISIS, Iraqi Government Forces Have Record of Laws of War Violations. HRW.

ISIS, Iraqi Government Forces Have Record of Laws of War Violations. HRW. (HRW).

Use of Child Soldiers.

ISIS and the PMF use children in their ranks. A man who fled Ramadi in May 2015, when ISIS controlled the city, said ISIS recruited children as young as 7 through the mosque or by force:

“Whoever had four sons had to give two to ISIS,” he said. “Whoever had three or two sons, had to give one.”

In August 2015, Human Rights Watch interviewed two children who managed to flee an ISIS training camp for over 340 children in Tel Afar. They said teachers trained older children in religious studies and boys aged 14 and over in combat. In Syria, ISIS and other groups used children in combat.

ISIS also prevents civilians from fleeing. In Fallujah, ISIS executed people trying to flee in March 2016, a lawyer in Baghdad who had a first-hand account told Human Rights Watch. Several people fleeing the Hawija area, in Kirkuk governorate, said that ISIS has mined fields to prevent people leaving, and executed people caught trying to escape. 

A young man fleeing Atshana village in Kirkuk, in September 2015, said ISIS shot at his group as they made a dash for the Kurdish front lines. Human Rights Watch spoke with several people who said that ISIS is not allowing anyone, including civilians, to leave Mosul at present. 

A civilian from ISIS-controlled Ba’aj, a town 160 kilometers west of Mosul, told Human Rights Watch that he had to pretend his wife was sick to be allowed to leave in May 2015. He said ISIS burned the car of another family because they tried to flee the town, warning them they would be killed if they tried again.

ISIS forces, in August 2014, attacked the city of Sinjar and surrounding areas in Ninewa province inhabited by many from the Yezidi religious minority. ISIS enslaved more than a thousand Yezidi women and girls and executed many Yezidi men.

An Annex on Military Matters of the Islamic State, a manual for its commanders, lists among the necessary attributes of an Islamic State commander, that he “observ[e] the rulings of war in their entirety” without specifying the nature of ISIS’ understanding of those rules. Read the full story here.

Video - HSC Executive Director Julie Lenarz discusses ISIS child soldiers on German ZDF. (German).

Video - HSC Executive Director Julie Lenarz discusses ISIS child soldiers on German ZDF. (German).

Over 50 ISIS child soldiers (Cubs of the Caliphate) killed in 2015

Over 50 ISIS child soldiers (Cubs of the Caliphate) killed in 2015. (NowMedia).

Dozens of ISIS child soldiers have been killed in Syria since the extremist group first introduced them to combat in the beginning of 2015, according to a monitoring NGO.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Wednesday that it has documented the death of 52 child soldiers under the age of 16 fighting in ISIS’ Ashbal al-Khilafa (Cubs of the Caliphate) unit.

The Observatory said it has been monitoring the casualties starting from the initial deployment of the Cubs of the Caliphate against Kurdish fighters in Kobane in mid-January up until the evening of July 14.

The monitoring NGO added it that it has received reports of “dozens of other child soldier casualties” that it has not been able to confirm.

ISIS has recruited over 400 children for its Cubs of the Caliphate unit since January amid an enlistment drive that has seen the extremist group open up recruitment centers in the eastern Syrian towns of Al-Mayadeen and Bou Kamel, according to a March 24 report published by the SOHR. Read the full story here.

We are not prepared for this! Lion Cubs of the caliphate: a ticking time bomb?

We are not prepared for this! Lion Cubs of the caliphate: a ticking time bomb? (Rudaw).

Journalists rarely make contact with people living in ISIS territories. They must depend mainly on those who fled ISIS and brought back the stories of its harsh rule by Sharia law and the way the radicals indoctrinate children.

One of the unique facets of ISIS is how it targets children. It starts with their education, which has been Islamized and cleansed of Western influence and anything that differs from life in the so-called ISIS caliphate.

Children go to special camps to be ingrained in the ideology of ISIS. Then they are sent to military camps where they learn how to fight. Many end up on the frontlines.

But not all, however, because ISIS understands that its future is the children they call the “Lion Cubs of the Caliphate.”

It is the youth that are the easiest to deceive and indoctrinate. Once that happens, they are lost to society unless they get help to replace these fundamentalist ideas with a healthier outlook.

In the problematic life of refugees, an existence focused on survival, this will not happen. It may even strengthen their beliefs and frustrations. Worse it could deepen the animosity ingrained in them against the “unbelievers.”

These young men, once the property of ISIS, are the time bombs the refugees carry with them when they return to their homes in areas recaptured from ISIS.

These “Lion Cubs” might follow ISIS commands to attack and kill and create chaos in order to bring back the caliphate they lost.

Even as ISIS is removed from areas it once controlled, the ideas they forced on young people remain.

Hmmmm.....If we look at what has happened in the past in Africa than we know sooner or later they will 'deploy' these kids in battle, i would hate to be among those who will be facing them for the first time.....It will take strong determination from the men or women in the 'forces' to aim and shoot a child......are we mentally prepared for this? And how do we deal with it afterwards?

Video - ISIS indoctrinated Children in Mosul Preach Jihad in IS Video.

Video - Children's Army of Hamas

"Accuses" in the sense of "documents" | Israeli group's documentary accuses Hamas of training child soldiers http://t.co/acA6wJZOG8
— Omri Ceren (@cerenomri) March 24, 2015

Chechen Leader Kadyrov Vows to Help Chechens Fighting With IS Return Home

                          Video - Kadyrov: 'Allah Akhbar' Chechnya For Putin.

Chechen Leader Kadyrov Vows to Help Chechens Fighting With IS Return Home.(rferl).

The head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, has vowed to help Chechens who are fighting alongside the Islamic State (IS) militant group in Syria and Iraq to return home.

"We are doing everything possible so as not to swell the ranks of these devils," Kadyrov told journalists at a press conference on March 3.

Kadyrov said that his men were working not only in the Chechen Republic but "also there, on the ground," in Syria, although he did not elaborate.

"We are bringing back those who have realized their mistakes and we are passing them on to the courts," the Chechen leader said, according to the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. Hmmmm.....Somehow I think he means in body bags. Read the full story here.

 Related:      Kadyrov says 20,000 Chechen volunteers ready to carry out orders of Putin.


                     

How 'Islamic State' children learn to kill ‘without batting an eye'.

How 'Islamic State' children learn to kill ‘without batting an eye'. (Raqqa).

Though not the only group in Syria to utilize child soldiers, the Islamic State’s recruitment and indoctrination of children has drawn widespread international condemnation.

The group periodically releases photos depicting children—nicknamed ‘lion cubs’ as an homage to IS fighters calling themselves ‘lions’ –wearing military fatigues and performing drills to prepare them for combat.

IS utilizes several different methods to persuade kids to enroll as fighters, including “sending already indoctrinated children back home for rest periods with the knowledge that they will encourage their friends to join up,” Abu Ibrahim a-Raqqawi, the alias of a founding member of the media campaign A-Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, tells Syria Direct’s Ghardinia Ashour.

“This issue is terrifyingly dangerous—they are not destroying their minds alone, but their hearts,” says a-Raqqawi. Here, a-Raqawi talks at length about IS’s history of child recruitment, how the group attracts children and what he has seen at the training camps.

The children, instructed by their recruiters not to tell their parents they are going off to one of the three camps in A-Raqqa province, often just disappear. Once in IS hands, they are subjected to nothing short of “brainwashing, total mental re-programming, a complete erasure of the child’s mind followed by the insertion of new information,” says a-Raqqawi.

“When families find out where there kids are and try to contact them, the child refuses to talk, saying, ‘I don’t want to talk to you, you are kufar and enemies of God. You are against the Islamic State.’”

Q: When did the Islamic State begin to recruit children?

IS began to recruit children in April or May 2014, with the opening of the “Sharia Camp for Lion Cubs” in Tabqa city. It’s a camp for kids under 16.

IS purposefully closed schools in order to recruit children, just as it prevented children under 13 from working on the pretext that they wanted to stop their exploitation—keeping in mind that IS recruits children at this age. They’re trying to recruit children through all possible means.

Q: What are the camps that are located in A-Raqqa?

There’s the Shariah Camp for Lion Cubs, the Lion Cubs of the Caliphate Institute, and recently the Al-Faruq Institute for Lion Cubs.

Q: What types of training are conducted in the camps?

Training is divided into a fast class and a slow class.

IS used the fast class when the battle for Ain al-Arab/Kobani was going on, and resorts to it when it finds itself in a large battle and in need of fighters.

The child enters a sharia course for one month, and then a military course for a second month, and afterwards is sent directly to the front. Seeing as the child is young to begin with and not supposed to be on the front, and did not undergo specific training that might allow him to stay alive in a battle, a lot of A-Raqqa’s children were killed, unfortunately.

The IS elements always come to announce, only orally [i.e. no written notice] that ‘this child of yours has died,’ without presenting the body. There is a youth whose case was documented, a 17-year-old named Basel Hamira, whom they made carry out a suicide operation in Ain al-Arab/Kobani.

As for the slow, or long-term class:

The child enters a sharia course for three to four months, and if he passes the course he enters a war course, also for three to four months. Sometimes the course is shortened, so the Sharia part will be 40 days, or a month to two months, and then three months of military training, according to how quickly the child is able to complete these sessions. Hmmmm.......Using child soldiers isa war crime. Read the full story here.

Two #Ezidi boys identify their friends in an ISIS propaganda video. ISIS abducted them & turns them into terrorists pic.twitter.com/788QxKFkKS

— Kurdistan News (@Firyayek) March 4, 2015

Girl suicide bomber, between 7 -10, kills five in Boko Haram attack in NE Nigeria.

Girl suicide bomber, between 7 -10, kills five in Boko Haram attack in NE Nigeria.(News).

A GIRL thought to be as young as seven-years-old killed herself and five others in a suicide bombing in northeast Nigeria as President Goodluck Jonathan conceded his government had underrated the capacity of the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram.

The attack on a market in the city of Potiskum on Sunday is the latest in a string of suicide strikes in which children have been used.

Previous attacks have been blamed on Boko Haram.

Nineteen people were injured in the blast in Yobe state’s commercial capital, a local vigilante leader told AFP.

“So far, five people were killed with the girl while 19 others have been taken to hospital for injuries,” Buba Lawan said.

A hospital source speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed the dead and the wounded count.

Sunday’s bombing in Potiskum was the second suicide attack in or near the market where new and second-hand phones are sold and repaired.

The first attack occurred January 11, when two suicide bombers — one of whom appeared to be around 15 — blew themselves up outside the market killing six people and injuring 37 others.

Before Sunday’s strike, suspicious security guards and vigilantes said they tried to prevent the girl — who witnesses said appeared around seven — from entering the market. Read the full story here.

Hmmm....This proves the danger the ME and the West are facing from 'Child warriors'. 
ISIL has just opened a school for English speaking kids (See Below), the chances of these kids entering Europe and the U.S. as 'fugitives' are real and huge. We better wake up.

#Raqqa #IS open 2 english school for foreign fighters children & changes d school name #Syria v @MFS001 v @Raqqa_Sl pic.twitter.com/pjPGP1RzdE
— Elijah J. Magnier (@EjmAlrai) February 22, 2015

Inside #IS #children training camp #Raqqa learning Jihad & Quran https://t.co/AwDm7IaclN … v @p_vanostaeyen v @MFS001 pic.twitter.com/g8WuzB7SB4
— Elijah J. Magnier (@EjmAlrai) February 22, 2015

Video - Child Soldiers Fighting in Rebel Ranks in Syria.

Child Soldiers Fighting in Rebel Ranks in Syria.HT: Memri.

"War Crimes" - Children under the age of ten being Turned in to fighters in Damascus’ Ghuota region by 'Islamist state'.

More pictures here.

"War Crimes" - Children under the age of ten being Turned in to fighters in Damascus’ Ghuota region by 'Islamist state'.(Ibn-tv).

“Facebook” and “Twitter”, particularly pages linked to extremist and terrorist groups, were busy broadcasting pictures of the guerrilla camp established by the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant ” [ISIL] in Damascus’ Ghuota region to train children on the use of arms.

According to the terrorists’ pages, the ISIL dubbed the camp as “The Cubs of Zarqawi” in reference to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi , who formed al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in the 1990s.

In late 2004 he joined al-Qaeda, and pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden. After this al-Tawhid wal-Jihad became known as al-Qaeda in Iraq [AQI], and al-Zarqawi was given the al-Qaeda title, “Emir of al- Qaeda in the Country of Two Rivers”. Later, his group expanded its activities to Syria to become known as the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant “.

In the recent photos, it seems clear that some of the children were under the age of ten. They appear undergoing training sessions on weapons , while others appeared eating food in the camp . It also appears from the photos that the children were dressed military uniforms, prepared to suit their small bodies .

According to information covered by the extremist websites , the camp includes hundreds of children who do not know where they were brought. They even didn’t mention whether those children were from the families of terrorists or residents of the areas, in which terrorist gangs stationed in Damascus.

8 month old fetus pulled from womb of shot woman

On another level, a British doctor told the Guardian daily that “snipers are deliberately shooting at pregnant women in Syria as they try to win packets of cigarettes for hitting their targets.”

David Nott, who recently spent five weeks as a volunteer surgeon in a hospital in Syria, said the wounds civilian victims of snipers suffered suggested the gunmen were picking different parts of the body to shoot at each day, and that sometimes it was the bellies of pregnant women selected.


“One day it would be shots to the groin. The next, it would only be the left chest,” he told The Times. “From the first patients that came in in the morning, you could almost tell what you would see for the rest of the day. It was a game. We heard the snipers were winning packets of cigarettes for hitting the correct number of targets.”

Hmmm......Sounds Familiar ?

"Yes We Can" - White House will continue giving military aid to countries with child soldiers.

"Yes We Can" - White House will continue giving military aid to countries with child soldiers.(RT).

The determination, authorized by President Barack Obama and addressed to Secretary of State John Kerry, says that it is in the national interest of the US to waive the application of a provision of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008 with respect to Chad, South Sudan and Yemen.

That provision, section 404(a), prohibits the US from providing assistance to or licensing the direct commercial sale of military equipment to the government of any country identified as having children under the age of 18 participating in armed operations.

Additionally, the White House has determined that it is in the best interest of the US if that prohibition is also waived in part with respect to the Democratic Republican of the Congo in order for America to continue providing International Military Education and Training (IMET) and nonlethal excess defense articles.

The determination will also let the DRC receive licenses for direct commercial sales of nonlethal defense articles. The White House also said it is waiving sections of the CSPA so that the US can allow Somalia to buy nonlethal defense articles and receive IMET and the continued assistance from America under the Peacekeeping Operations authority “for logistical support and troop stipends.”

Presidential Determination, courtesy of Think Progress:

According to Think Progress writer Hayes Brown, the blanket waiver applied to Chad, South Sudan and Yemen will essentially allow those nations to receive as much military assistance as possible from the US, while Somalia and the DRC will only be granted lethal aid in support of peacekeeping missions currently underway in those countries.

The six nations that will benefit from the waiver make up the majority of a list of ten countries determined by the Department of State to be using children soldiers. Those that have been determined to employ children but are not having the prohibition waived are Burma (Myanmar), the Central African Republic, Sudan and Rwanda.
But despite the State Department’s awareness of those activities, this isn’t the first time the Obama administration has waived provisions of the CSPA — even with regards to those countries. Last October, Pres. Obama waived penalties against Libya, South Sudan and Yemen, and again provided a partial waiver for the DRC.

This week’s determination in fact marks the fourth consecutive year that Obama has lifted restrictions on a law only five years old.

When the White House announced its determination last year, Jo Becker of Human Rights Watch told Foreign Policy’s The Cable that "While the administration has stepped up its attention to child soldiers, it continues to squander the leverage it has through the Child Soldiers Prevention Act.”
"By giving waivers to nearly all of the countries that have been affected by the law, the president is telling military allies that ending the use of child soldiers is not that important,” said Becker, the director of the group’s children’s rights advocacy office.

On Monday this week, however, Becker authored a statement on the Human Rights Watch website applauding the Obama administration’s decision to scale back, in part, assistance to Somalia and the DRC — countries that were allowed to receive even greater aid from the US in years past.
“The US government announced today it will withhold military assistance from four countries – the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Rwanda – because of their recruitment and use of child soldiers. This is a big improvement from previous years when the Obama administration routinely allowed governments to receive US military assistance even while they had child soldiers in their forces,” Becker wrote.

According to Becker, the White House’s stance to provide some countries with only some support may actually help remove those nations of children soldiers in the long run.

“Last year we saw how the law could really work. The Obama administration announced it would withhold foreign military financing and training from a Congolese battalion until Congo signed an agreement with the United Nations to end its use of child soldiers. The Congo had been dragging its feet on signing the plan for seven years, but signed the plan only five days after the US announcement,” Becker wrote.

“This year, the administration will withhold at least some assistance from four countries, not just one. This will put real pressure on these countries to take some serious steps to end their use of child soldiers,” she said. “The Obama administration’s attention to child soldiers is welcome, but there’s still more it can do to bring an end to this horrible practice.”

According to Becker, Yemen will be the recipient of more than $20 million foreign military financing from the US. In 2010, the Obama administration said it was necessary for the US to continue providing Yemen with assistance because cutting off funding “would seriously jeopardize the Yemeni government's ability to conduct special operations and counterterrorism missions, and create a dangerous level of in the country and the region.”  

Video - Report on Sunni Child Soldiers in North Lebanon.