How to bring up jihadi children, book explains

How do you create an army of fighters dedicated to mindless brutalities and owing unquestioned allegiance to the jihadi ideology?

Virulent terrorist groups like the Islamic State (IS) apparently have an answer to this, and for them, training in the jihadi doctrine and in violence must start early in one's life, according to a guidebook that has surfaced online.

The handbook, called "Sister's role in jihad", explains that women should start training children "while they are babies" as waiting until they are toddlers "may be too late", adding: "Don't underestimate the lasting effect of what those little ears and eyes take in during the first few years of life!"

It recommends showing children jihadi websites, reading tales of jihad at bedtime, and encouraging sports such as darts to improve their aim, the Daily Mail reported.

The book was highlighted by the US-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), ahead of a new report condemning how children were being indoctrinated into radical Islam.

Steven Stalinsky, executive director of MEMRI, said: "As we move into 2015, Al Qaeda and its affiliates, IS, and other jihadi groups worldwide continue to invest a lot of effort in (the) indoctrination of the next generation of fighters."

"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 added.

"They have been trained on the battlefield and know how to create bombs and suicide belts and to behead and crucify the innocent. This is something we must be prepared for and understand," he warned.

Other pieces of advice from the book include encouraging children to play with toy guns, while saying that if one owns a real gun, it must be kept "totally out of young children's reach".

The original authors of the textbook are unknown, but it is thought to be used by the IS and other terror groups.

The guide recommends making the training "fun" for youngsters, though it stresses that "fun does not mean music and dancing, as is portrayed by Western children's TV".

Instead, youngsters should be banned from watching all television as "it mostly teaches shamelessness, anarchy, and random violence", it added.

Children should take part in sports like skiing to improve their fitness, and camping to teach them to survive outdoors, the book prescribes.

They should practice target-shooting with toy guns to help direct their anger, though parents should "make it very clear who their target should be, and who their target should not be", it added.

Twitter accounts linked to the IS terror group regularly feature images of children holding knives and large machine guns, often with the captions "Generation Caliphate" or "Ashbal", meaning lion cubs.

In one sickening image, a young boy walks though a crowd in the street holding a severed head, while those around him smile and take photographs on their phones.

The report comes just over a week after an Italian mother, whose son was kidnapped by his father and taken to Syria, saw her child for the first time in a year, as part of an IS propaganda poster.