Ebu Mecid has fought against the SDF in many areas. He is only 14, and just one of the many children abducted and turned into killers by ISIS.

Ebu Mecid’s real name is Muhemmed Remedan. He is one of the child soldiers of ISIS. Even the language he uses has been affected: Mecid was originally from a village in Ayn Îsa, but his speech and accent is more reminiscent of Tunisian or African Arabs. Everything about him has changed, not just his speech.

When Ayn Îsa was invaded by ISIS, Mihemed Remedan and many other children at school at the time were abducted. Mihemed’s father used to work in Lebanon, but returned after the ISIS invasion and made a new decision. Mihemed said, “My father told me he won’t be returning to Lebanon anymore, and that we would have to work for ISIS from now on. He also said they have a lot of money.

Mihemed Remedan was trained for 6 months by ISIS. He was conditioned on who the enemy was, how to fight, and the correct lifestyle and the way of thinking.

AFTER 6 MONTHS OF TRAINING

After 6 months, he was told he would receive military training for 1.5 years in Iraq or Homs. He chose Homs. His reasoning was, “Homs is closer to my family, Iraq is farther away.”

With 60 other children, he was taken from the Suxnê subdistrict to Homs and received military training in camps there. On his state of mind in there, he said: “I never thought about anything when I was there, except how I could fight and how I could go to paradise. We were trained very intensely. We even learned how to torture.”

BROUGHT TO RAQQA FROM HOMS

After his military training was complete, he was brought to Raqqa and joined in the war. What he saw and experienced on the battle field confused him. He couldn’t get over the paradox of the “good people” and the evil. On the moment he made his final decision, he said: “They took me to the prison. I could hear the women there. I looked through a hole, and I saw how they tortured women. That was when I decided. When I left the prison, I told a friend of mine that I was going to run away, that I was going to get out even if it cost me my life. In the end I managed to get away.”