ISIS Propaganda Handbook Urges Muslim Mothers To Cultivate 'Jihadi Spirit' In Young Children

A new book, allegedly released by militants of the Islamic State group, aimed at providing “helpful tips” to Muslim mothers on raising extremist children, surfaced online Wednesday. The book, titled “Sister's Role in Jihad,” encourages mothers to start training their children in the ways of jihad “while they are babies,” according to media reports.

The propaganda material, which reportedly reads like a jihadist guidebook, encourages mothers to cultivate their children’s “jihadi spirit” by “getting military books (preferably with pictures) and other similar books, CDs, videos, and by visiting web sites along with your children, and utilizing other internet resources.” However, the book also tells mothers to ban television, which, it reportedly says, results in “mental and physical loss.”

The book also urges mothers to train their children in “target shooting” by encouraging them to play mock war games using toy guns and toy military sets, according to media reports. This, the book reportedly argues, would raise the children’s interest in military matters and eventually help them “become like mujahideen.”

ISIS militants have regularly boasted online of building an army of indoctrinated children to fight for their cause. In November last year, photos and videos of children holding severed heads and AK-47s were posted online on jihadist forums under the title “cubs of the Islamic State,” according to media reports.

“It's being done for the same reasons that Hitler had the Hitler Youth … There's no term better suited to it than brainwashing,” Charlie Winter from the Quilliam Foundation, a London-based anti-extremist think tank, had told NBC News back in November.

Steven Stalinsky, executive director of Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington-based research organization, reportedly said that the release of the latest propaganda material was done to capture the world’s attention.

“All these groups want the world to know that this indoctrination is taking place … no matter what happens in Iraq and Syria in the near future, the next generation -- the children of Baghdadi and grandchildren of bin Laden -- have already been brainwashed to hate the West and to strive for jihad and martyrdom,” Stalinsky reportedly said.