DAHUK, Iraqi Kurdistan — Majdal, a 14-year-old Yazidi teenager wearing a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, looks like an ordinary boy but does not feel like one anymore. His childhood was destroyed when the Islamic State (IS) invaded his hometown Kocho in August 2014. Like other Yazidis, Majdal was separated from his mother and siblings. He was brought to a military camp in Raqqa. “Forget your faith, family and past. From now on, your name is Abu Otman and you are Muslim,” the leader of the camp told Majdal.

Majdal showed Al-Monitor a video of an IS training camp for boys. In the propaganda video posted to YouTube, he and other children sit with an IS militant. They wear IS headbands and camouflage, and stare vacantly. “It's really strange to see myself like that," Majdal said sadly. He was rescued two months ago and now lives with his relatives in a camp for the internally displaced near the Kurdish city of Dahuk. 

IS sent him and other children to a site near the Syrian city of Aleppo to fight the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Initially, Majdal and some other child soldiers refused. "Fight or starve," the jihadis threatened. The terror group put drugs in their meals. “After eating, I felt like a hero. If [IS] had told me to burn myself, I would have done it without hesitation," said Majdal.

His "unit" consisted of Yazidi and Arab children. IS puts children in the front line explicitly to clear a path for the adult fighters, Majdal stated. He estimates that about 90% of the boys in his group were killed, including a 16-year-old Yazidi named Bassem. “One day we saw the FSA in the distance. Bassem rushed off at full speed, shooting randomly," he said. “But when the fighters saw him, Bassem suddenly stopped. He laid down his weapon, sat down in an open field and was shot.”