Teens grin for the camera, take selfies and hug – before going to die as ISIS suicide bombers
The pictures were recovered from a dead jihadi's phone
MOBILE phone pictures discovered on a dead ISIS fighter show grinning kids posing for the camera, taking selfies - and wearing suicide bomb vests.
The sickening images were uncovered by Kurdish fighters who have surrounded Bashiqa, which lies on a crucial supply route 8 miles from Mosul, and released by the Rudaw media network.
In one picture two boys, one aged about 12, the other a few years older, grin for the camera with their arms around each other.
The next shows the older boy proudly donning an explosive vest and pointing upwards, a gesture common among jihadis.
He is also seen embracing another teen in a suicide bomb vest and posing with an AK-47 assault rifle.
Seemingly innocent pictures of a teen preparing chicken for dinner and relaxing on bedding mingle with pictures of older terror thugs in the same room preparing explosive vests and surrounded by military weaponry.
ISIS runs vile training camps for children as young as six - known as the 'Cubs of the Caliphate' - before sending the brain-washed kids out to die for their perverted cause.
US-backed Iraqi and Kurdish forces are making “solid progress” but are now meeting “heavy resistance,” outside Mosul from ISIS, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters Monday, predicting that “it’s going to get heavier” as allied forces push into the city.
Davis said there were indications ISIS was forcing some of its administrative and support personnel inside Mosul to become fighters. Late last week, U.S. military officials had characterised ISIS resistance as “moderate.”
ISIS has launched attacks in Sinjar in northern Iraq and Rutba out west in order to disrupt the Mosul campaign.
Until now, most of the fighting has been in largely uninhabited towns and villages, but Iraqi special forces found more than 70 civilians sheltering in Tob Zawa. They will certainly encounter many more civilians as they get closer to Mosul, still home to more than 1 million people.