Bomb-Strapped Syrian Teenager Surrendered to Iraqi Guards To Escape ISIS

He was just a 14-year-old Syrian, but Usaid Barho surrendered to Iraqi guards when he was strapped with a vest full of explosives. An Islamic State recruit, the teenager said that a professed mission to bomb a Shiite mosque could give him an escape route, according to rt.com.

This child, who had once loved soccer, Jackie Chan films and wanted to grow up to be a doctor, was captured and indoctrinated by the Islamic State in Syria and forced to convert to Shiite-hating beliefs.

At the gate of a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, he approached guards: "I have a suicide vest, but I don't want to blow myself up." He opened his jacket and showed the bombs and then gave himself up. A plainclothes officer at the mosque removed the bombs in an event that was photographed. The whole incident was shot on a cellphone video, according to aljoumhouria.

Barho added that he was recruited by Sunni Muslimes. By giving himself up, he could avoid the ISIS, after he was taken in by Sunni extremists from a mosque in his hometown near Aleppo, Syria.

He explained that he was being recruited with the idea that the Shiites are "infidels" and had to be killed, Barho said. "We started being taught that Shiites were raping Sunni women, and that Shiites were killing Sunni men. They seduced us to join the caliphate."

Disturbingly, there are many stories of other children being recruited. Just this month, an Italian mother was upset when she saw pictures of her three-year-old son posted on Islamic State forums. She said that her ex-husband, who had left Italy to join the Islamic State, had captured her son.

The UN released a report in November after talking to over 300 men, women, and children. Condemning the Islamic State for taking in children, it said that information shows that ISIS takes in children in order to ensure that they get long-term loyalty to them and their ideology, as well as devoted fighters.

The report says that while education is being for propaganda, the course has been changed, reflecting changes in ideologies and weapons training.

"By using, conscripting and enlisting children for active combat roles, the group is perpetuating abuses and war crimes on a massive scale in a systematic and organized manner," according to the report.