Islamic State has released a chilling video that shows two teenage Yazidi brothers who purportedly blew up explosives-laden vehicles in an attack on Iraqi forces in Mosul.
The video was posted this week by the IS propaganda arm Wilayah Ninawa and titled "So From Their Guidance Take an Example," referring to a verse from the Quran. In it, the youths are shown pledging allegiance to IS before carrying out the suicide car bomb attack.
"God willing, my brother and I will blow ourselves up on the infidels," one of the boys, who identified himself as As'ad, said in the 26-minute-video.
He and his brother Amjad were identified to Voice of America by their uncle, Mizra Ezdin, who said they were "just two innocent children" when they were kidnapped at age 12 by IS in Sinjar, in northwest Iraq, August 3, 2014. VOA could not authenticate the video.
7 from family killed
"Their father and six of their brothers were killed by IS, and they were taken with their mother and two sisters," Ezdin told VOA. He said their mother and two sisters were still being held by IS.
"They were raised by good parents and did very well at school," Ezdin said. "IS spent more than two years poisoning their minds with violent beliefs and military training. IS shattered my family to pieces."
The video's narrator explains how the boys were taken to IS Sharia schools for "true guidance."
The boys described learning IS's extreme version of Islam.
"Glory be to God, when we were in Sinjar, we were worshipping Satan, not swearing to Allah but to the milk of our mothers," Amjad said in the video as the boys knelt on the ground and leaned on their Kalashnikovs under the shade of a tree.
Amjad said that after receiving religious training, they were sent to Syria for military training, then went to an IS battalion known as Anas Ibn al-Nathir.
"Glory be to God, as soon as we entered the battalion, we said, 'We want to carry out a martyrdom mission. We want to charge at the enemies of Allah and tear through them, even if they were our parents,' " Amjad said.
Video shows explosion
The video then shows the brothers grinning as they each board an armored vehicle loaded with explosives. The video shifts to an aerial view, presumably filmed by IS drones, showing the cars approaching Iraqi military vehicles and exploding.
IS regards Yazidis as devil worshippers who have to convert to Islam or die. The group attacked Sinjar, the ancestral capital for more than 200,000 people of the religious minority in northern Iraq, in August 2014, killing roughly 5,000 of its male residents and enslaving thousands of women and children. The women are reportedly used as sex slaves, while the children are taught IS ideology.
According to the Iraqi Kurdistan's Directorate of Yazidi Affairs, roughly 1,000 Yazidi children are under IS control in Syria and Iraq.
