Since the start of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) aggressive online campaign in justifying its own brand of caliphate, children have been targeted as a subject of propaganda and featured alongside adult fighters in visual reports as well as videos.

The imagery of children in ISIS media outreach for the Nusantara region, which encompasses Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, is more than just a marketing gimmick.

The way these children are being portrayed as ideologues at a tender age reflects a deeper agenda to immunise the idea of indiscriminate killing, making it outwardly permissible for even children to use violence to realise the so-called caliphate dream.

… The writer is an associate research fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. This article first appeared in RSIS Commentaries.