Two camps in Syria indoctrinating children in Daish ideology

This is no child's play.

The Royal Malaysian Police have revealed that two training camps in Syria were recruiting and training children on the struggles of the so-called IS militant group, also known as Daish.

It is understood about 500 children – some as young as two years of age – are undergoing training at the two training camps in existence over the past two years.

Bukit Aman Special Branch Counter-Terrorism (E8) Assistant Director, Datuk Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay said the training camps were set up to train new batches of Daish members.

"One of the camps built there (in Syria) is specifically for children from South East Asia, using Bahasa Indonesia as their intermediary language while another camp is for children from Kazakhstan," he said today.

However, he said the police were unaware whether Malaysian children, if any, were being trained at the camp for South East Asia.

He said this when met by reporters at an Islamic State Seminar: 'Jihad vs Militancy' at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia in Jalan Semarak here yesterday.

Ayob Khan said the children were exposed to the group's doctrines as early as two years old and would grow up to become dangerous militants.

"Among the children in the training camps are the off-springs of the members of the militant group themselves, who are taken from their country of origin or were born there.

"The children are also experts in using firearms to defend themselves if threatened," he said.