ICC Note: The Islamic terrorist group has been recruiting kids for several years now to continue and expand their jihad.  Several of the children are promised education and a better future by the militants, but they are used instead as suicide bombers, spies or combats in the field. Al-Shabaab’s purpose is to bring the region under Sharia Law and children become an easy target for them to recruit because of the dangerous situation in the region. Additionally, in their pursuit to turn Somalia into a fundamentalist Islamic State, they constantly attack Christians and try to push them away from what they consider to be “Muslim” lands.
1/20/2017, Somalia (News 24) – Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says he is alarmed at reports that children may constitute a large part of the force recruited and used by al-Shabaab Islamic extremists in Somalia.
Guterres said it is estimated over half its force are children, citing as an example that at least 60% of al-Shabaab “elements” captured in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region in March 2016 were youngsters.
Some of those children said they were approached with the promise of education and jobs, he said.
Somalia has been trying to rebuild after recently establishing its first functioning central government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a longtime dictator and plunged the impoverished nation into chaos.
But the country is riven by clan rivalries and threatened by al-Shabaab extremists opposed to Western-style democracy.
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