ISIS has recruited at least 400 children since the start of the year and has given them military training and indoctrination into their extremist brand of Islam.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the children were recruited near schools and mosques where ISIS has carried out killings and punishments on people who do not live up to their extremist ideology.  In many cases, the children go with the terrorists over their objections of their parents.

One boy is believed to be the half-brother of Mohamed Merah, who killed three soldiers, a Rabbi and three Jewish children in France in 2012.

“They use children because it is easy to brainwash them. They can build these children into what they want, they stop them from going to school and send them to IS schools instead,” said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the British-based Observatory.

The group said that ISIS has had children carry out beheadings and executions as a way to show them the “power” of ISIS.  The children are also being used as informants after being returned to their families.  They report on actions within their communities to the ISIS leadership.