How ISIS grooms ‘illegitimate sons’ as its next generation

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has reportedly found a solution for children born to “slave women” in captivity by adopting them as “sons of ISIS”.

A source inside Syria confirmed to AlArabiya.net that ISIS has built numerous homes that specifically house the “illegitimate sons” whose fathers cannot be identified while their mothers are held captive and sold to fighters.

According to the source, nearly 20 percent of such children belong to “unknown” fathers while 90 percent belong to “foreign fighters”. Of those, nearly half are European in ethnicity while the remaining are Arabs. The mothers of these children were taken in as “Sabaya” – women who were trafficked from captured cities and sold to ISIS militants and their supporters.

These houses bring in the “sons of ISIS” when they turn 12 years of age in a bid to prepare the second generation of ISIS. According to inside sources, two men take care of the young: Mahmoud al-Khamis in Raqqa (nicknamed Abu Mariah al-Ansari) and Abu Aziz al-Jazrawi from Saudi Arabia. They are paid anywhere between $1,000 to $1,800 for their services.

The next generation

ISIS start preparing the children from a very young age and, according to information obtained by Al Arabiya, these children - who range from infants up to 12-years - are given Islamic lessons in the mosque as well as lessons in the Arabic language.

Those aged between 13 and 15 are then taken to closed workshops, presumably to submit them to ISIS propaganda. According to the sources, these workshops are boot-camp in nature and can last up to two weeks without any contact with their outside world.

An insight into the lives of these “sons of ISIS” in an ISIS propaganda magazine once said that competitions are routinely held where the prize for a young 15-year-old ISIS achiever would be a new “sabaya” – young new prisoner-wife.

*A full version of this report was first published in Arabic on AlArabiya.net.