![boys as young as eight are forced into training photo the telegraph boys as young as eight are forced into training photo the telegraph](https://i1.tribune.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/923694-training-1437464488.gif)
When IS fighters took over Yazidi towns in northern Iraq last year, they killed older men and imprisoned many women and girls. The young boys, however, were taken to training camps where the IS forced them to convert to Islam and trained them into becoming fighters.
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Yahya, 14, and his brother spent five months in training before managing to escape the ‘Farouq Institute For Cubs’ in Raqqa a few months ago.
Yahya recounted, "They brought dolls and they told us how to hold the sword and how to chop off the head. The first time I hit it I couldn't cut it, neither the second and third time. But then they taught me how to hold the sword and they told me how to hit and they told me that it was the head of the infidels."
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The training camps are being run by IS to build a new generation of militants.
This article originally appeared on The Telegraph
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