Al-Qaeda’s influence has extended to reach young boys whom are undergoing instruction and military training at the "Zarqawi’s Cubs Camp," a facility linked to the extremist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Al-Qaeda’s influence has extended to reach young boys whom are undergoing instruction and military training at the "Zarqawi's Cubs Camp," a facility linked to the extremist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the Washington Post reported.

“Building on earlier efforts to expand their influence in Syrian schools, radical Islamists appear to be stepping up efforts to indoctrinate and train children, some as young as 10, according to independent experts who have studied the phenomenon,” the report said.

“The establishment of the Zarqawi’s Cubs camp — revealed in a video posted last month by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS — is viewed as particularly worrisome because of the similarities to Iraq’s “Birds of Paradise.” That brigade was created a decade ago by the same terrorist group, in its earlier incarnation as al-Qaeda in Iraq, to train children for military missions, including suicide bombings.”

The ISIS youth group was named in honor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian who founded al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The Washington Post added that the boys are shown being led by masked instructors through small-arms exercises and sitting in groups under the ISIS banner, some of them weighed down by bandoleers of machine-gun ammunition. “Other images show the boys undergoing instruction or, in one instance, talking happily over a lunch of flatbread. Beverages are distributed in colorful cups adorned with the cartoon “happy face.”