Dr. Bahaa Helmy Writes: The Culture and Cubs of ISIS… New Launching Points for International Terrorism

ISIS has created a global alphabet of its own, based on words and vocabulary that clearly express a language and culture that need no translation to be understood and no search for their meaning: they are the vocabulary of the language of violence and the culture of death, terror and frightening people in every corner of the earth. This alphabet also points to the creed, identity and strategy of ISIS, which are based on «terror / bombing / burning / kidnapping / running people over / slaughtering / drowning / stabbing / beheading / shooting / throwing from the top of a building / assassination / explosive belts / car and motorcycle bombs / disemboweling / rape / body parts…» and every idea against life and humanity that can be imagined. Keen to entrench this culture, the organization has created a new generation of buds and cubs («children») raised on the ideology and culture of violence, nursed on blood and the arts of killing, and trained to cut off the heads of dolls and to carry out executions in various ways, after humanity, mercy and innocence have been stripped from their hearts, so that they form the cadres of the future, following in their parents' footsteps in the organization in the hope of realizing the dream of establishing a cross-border caliphate on the ruins of human values to exalt the identity of ISIS. ISIS's use of children in suicide attacks was no coincidence but part of a broader strategy to cultivate a new generation of militants and indoctrinate them with the organization's ideas – in the words of the American newspaper The Washington Post. They called these children «cubs» after integrating them into the organization's war machine. Many videos have previously appeared of children carrying out executions, indicating their success in brainwashing these children and saturating them with combat ideology, and analysis of these scenes reveals the level of training they have reached in how to behead and how to carry out complex terrorist operations, such as an armed attack followed by detonating explosive belts or car bombs, to cause the largest number of casualties. We note that ISIS's culture and strategy of using children has spread to most terrorist groups in areas of armed conflict, whether in Syria, Iraq and Yemen or with Boko Haram and others. This can be seen in footage circulated by some Iraqi media in August 2016 documenting the arrest of a child before he blew himself up in the city of Kirkuk, Iraq, and it was reported that the suicide attack in Gaziantep, Turkey, which killed dozens, was probably carried out by a child who blew himself up. Statistics reported by Russia Today indicate that the total number of children recruited by Boko Haram to carry out suicide bombings in Nigeria this year has quadrupled compared with 2016, and a UNICEF statement established that 83 children have blown themselves up since the beginning of this year, 55 of them girls, most under the age of 15, and 27 boys, one of them a baby strapped to a girl's body. As for the video released by ISIS last month, in which some children speaking foreign languages appeared executing some men by slaughtering them with knives, along with threats to carry out new terrorist operations in Europe and in the countries taking part in the US-led international coalition against ISIS, it must be taken into account. All states must therefore cooperate with the Egyptian vision for combating terrorism, especially on the information and intelligence side; identify sources of funding to confront these dangers; raise awareness among families and young people against the malice on the international information network; and review security plans, drawing on past experiences and lessons and moving away from routine and traditional methods, so that the new launching points of international terrorism can be confronted.