ISIS is 'copying the Nazis' recruitment tactics and brainwashing young boys from BIRTH into becoming their next generation of killers'

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ISIS is copying the Nazis' recruitment tactics to brainwash young boys into becoming its next generation of killers, a leading terrorism think tank has claimed.

Experts at the Quilliam foundation who analysed how ISIS indoctrinates young boys said the terror group immerses them in its twisted ideology from the moment they are born.

In the first ever study into how the group exploits and abuses children to continue its existence, they claimed the senior ISIS fighters see the children as 'purer' versions of themselves.

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ISIS is copying the Nazis' recruitment tactics to brainwash young boys into becoming its next generation of killers

Of more than 800 British people living in ISIS territory, 50 are thought to be children.

The United Nations has recently received reports the terror group has begun an official youth wing, Fityan al Islam - or 'boys of Islam'.

By studying ISIS propaganda and speaking to sources living among ISIS, Quilliam said the group is desperate to recruit young and impressionable children to 'safeguard its future'.

It said many of them are being turned into spies, soldiers, suicide bombers and executioners.

The report stated: 'The organisation [ISIS]... focuses a large number of its efforts in indoctrinating children through an extremism-based education curriculum.

'The current generation of fighters sees these children as better and more lethal fighters than themselves.

'Rather than being converted into radical ideologies they have been indoctrinated into these extreme values from birth, or a very young age.'

The report said these boys 'are better and more brutal fighters as they are trained in violence from a very young age'.

Experts at the Quilliam foundation, who analysed how ISIS indoctrinates young boys, said boys are introduced to the terror group's twisted ideology at birth

Of more than 800 British people living in ISIS territory, 50 are thought to be children

It also compared ISIS's focus on youth to the child soldiers forced to fight for Liberian dictator Charles Taylor's rebel army in the 1990s - and the Nazi regime which created the Hitler Youth to brainwash children.

The report found that children were used heavily in ISIS propaganda between August and February, with more than 250 propaganda releases featuring children.

ISIS is known to release videos of young boys, dubbed the 'Cubs of the Caliphate', being trained with dangerous weapons and hand to hand combat.

The terror group is also said to 'normalise' them to brutality from a young age by forcing them to hold the heads of decapitated victims - or play football with them.

In the last six months, it has released videos of at least 12 children killing victims, including a four-year-old British boy who blew up a car full of trapped hostages.

The UN Mission in Iraq said ISIS has abducted up to 900 children aged nine to 15, and many of them are forced to go to ISIS controlled schools.

Here, they are immersed in ISIS's twisted curriculum, desensitised to violence and taught the skills needed to wage a holy war on the West.

Quilliam also found that ISIS uses fear to recruit young boys by threatening those who defy them with floggings, torture and rape.

Quilliam said the group is desperate to recruit young and impressionable children to 'safeguard its future'

The Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, which co-wrote the report, said life under ISIS is 'one of the gravest situations for children on Earth'. 

Its spokesperson told the Guardian: 'It is hoped that this report will provide a critical perspective on the plight of these children, that will then create essential reflections for policymakers, child protection agencies, governments, multilateral organisations, and those concerned with ending conflict in Iraq and Syria.'

Quilliam's report, entitled 'Children of the Islamic State', has been endorsed by the UN and will be published in parliament on Wednesday.