- Dec 8, 2013
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Syrian radicals 'brainwash' kidnapped schoolchildren - CNN.com
CNN) -- Militants with black masks stand by as 15-year-old Mohammed watches a video of fighters cutting off a man's head.
"This is jihad for the sake of God," the men with Kalashnikov rifles say.
Mohammed begins to feel lost, confused. "Does God want me to do jihad?" he wonders.
This is Mohammed's eyewitness account, told to CNN on Wednesday in a telephone interview.
He was one of the more than 140 Kurdish schoolboys kidnapped in Syria last month by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and forced to take daily lessons in radical Islamic theology, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based monitoring group, and local activists say.
Mohammed's account provides insight into the workings of an organization that has the stated goal of creating a single caliphate across Syria and neighboring Iraq.
Armed fighters in pickup trucks on May 29 stopped buses driving children back to their hometown of Ayn al-Arab from their junior high final exams in Aleppo.
"How can you sit with the girls? It is forbidden!" the men, many with foreign accents, yelled as they separated the female students and took only the boys.
The convoy of fighters then forcibly escorted the all-male group to the ISIS-controlled city of Manbij in northern Syria, Mohammed told CNN.
Nearly a month later, all the boys, ranging in age from 14 to 16, remain hostages, except for Mohammed and three others who made a harrowing escape.
"We were all so scared. On the way back, we were celebrating that we had finished our tests. We were excited to go home and see our families. We didn't know why they took us," says Mohammed, who asked his full name not be used for fear of his safety.
After five days in captivity, Mohammed and a friend asked their classmates to create a diversion. The boys slipped out a back door, climbed a fence and started running to safety.
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What a wonderful religion of peace. This is Israel's fault too, right?
CNN) -- Militants with black masks stand by as 15-year-old Mohammed watches a video of fighters cutting off a man's head.
"This is jihad for the sake of God," the men with Kalashnikov rifles say.
Mohammed begins to feel lost, confused. "Does God want me to do jihad?" he wonders.
This is Mohammed's eyewitness account, told to CNN on Wednesday in a telephone interview.
He was one of the more than 140 Kurdish schoolboys kidnapped in Syria last month by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and forced to take daily lessons in radical Islamic theology, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based monitoring group, and local activists say.
Mohammed's account provides insight into the workings of an organization that has the stated goal of creating a single caliphate across Syria and neighboring Iraq.
Armed fighters in pickup trucks on May 29 stopped buses driving children back to their hometown of Ayn al-Arab from their junior high final exams in Aleppo.
"How can you sit with the girls? It is forbidden!" the men, many with foreign accents, yelled as they separated the female students and took only the boys.
The convoy of fighters then forcibly escorted the all-male group to the ISIS-controlled city of Manbij in northern Syria, Mohammed told CNN.
Nearly a month later, all the boys, ranging in age from 14 to 16, remain hostages, except for Mohammed and three others who made a harrowing escape.
"We were all so scared. On the way back, we were celebrating that we had finished our tests. We were excited to go home and see our families. We didn't know why they took us," says Mohammed, who asked his full name not be used for fear of his safety.
After five days in captivity, Mohammed and a friend asked their classmates to create a diversion. The boys slipped out a back door, climbed a fence and started running to safety.
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What a wonderful religion of peace. This is Israel's fault too, right?
