New Dangers Stalk Syrian Children Still Haunted by Horrors Under ISIS

Jul 31, 2017 · 49 comments
Lois steinberg (Urbana, IL)
Close our 700+ military bases, convert from a military industrial complex to an environmental complex, build schools, health care clinics, public transportation, create teachers, health care professionals, and stop the madness for greed.
Chris (Louisville)
SEVERELY TRAUMATIZED, The children need not come to the United State.
John Smith (Cherry Hill, NJ)
SEVERELY TRAUMATIZED, The children who survived Raqqa emerge from the terrors as pseudo-mature, since they were subjected to emotional and physical torture as trapped victims of the war in Syria. They are lethargic when being examined by doctors because they are severely traumatized and depressed--a profound sense of hopelessness haunts their spirits. Yet being so young, they have no words to explain their traumatized thoughts and feelings. They have only flashbacks, emotional and physical, as a terrifying substitute for the transitional objects kids carry around--a favorite blanket, toy, doll, or some other special belonging--these children carry around the ghosts, zombies and terrors of their minds that blanket them with torment and despair.
Mary (Atlanta)
There is a special place in Hell for these ISIS 'soldiers' and it isn't populated with virgins.
Jenifer Wolf (New York)
Unfortunately, there's only the living hell.
Ian MacFarlane (Philadelphia PA)
A majority of those who fight any war any where have been brainwashed from infancy and played for fools by leaders who tout a better life awaits those who sacrifice themselves in the name of non-existent deities.

One way or another, unprovable belief brings about destructive changes and yet religious leaders, regardless the irrationality they sermonize are held with respect, consulted by politicians and asked for social guidance. I would accept this as a bizarre offshoot of a few fearfully deluded aberrants if the abdication of reason under which they function were not so widespread.

Those who survive are so deeply scarred every aspect of their humanity is irrevocably altered.

I know from personal experience these thoughts are based in fact.
AP (US)
This tears me up on many levels. When an American child loses a parent we try to provide a myriad of services. But how do they or we heal this constellation of insults to these children?It's loss of childhood, education, health, life, culture, safety and any semblance that there is a place their families can go to where the events of the past do not direct their future. It isn't surprising they exhibit such behavior...did we expect otherwise?

Obviously, the real quandary is how do their parents, cultural/religious leaders (those not interested in violence) and aid workers help them through this. Otherwise, this will simply breed the next generation of violence that will be even more sadistic than ISIS. I am hoping someone can post info about cultural specific programs that have shown long term benefits to the victims of such events because this situation feels so hopeless (perhaps something also utilizing trusted trained community laypeople who have been less effected to help restablish normal and promote healing?).

I protested in the streets (once even with my dad) when we invaded Iraq thinking we must have lost our minds to risk destabilizing a region and go to war without cause. I wish I could send Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and GW over to spend their lives helping the victims of a fractured region where ISIS would have unlikely ever found such fertile ground in Iraq and Syria if it had not been for us.
Sandra Urgo (Stillwater)
That is why I feel so frustrated that our country now refuses to take these families in who have been so hurt. I think so often of the gold star mother who trump insulted, which was symbolic of the right wing attitudes that got him elected. The best place for these children would be in a country that welcomes them, respects their culture, works with their feelings and teaches them both skills and attitudes they need to succeed. the U.S. Isn't the best place anymore for that which makes me very sad.
Jenifer Wolf (New York)
Yes the American invasion of Iraq was morally wrong on many levels.
Jenifer Wolf (New York)
It was the 'gold star' father who should have been insulted. It looked like he was going to hit his wife in the face with the constitution, which made me really uncomfortable.
Tokujiro (Australia)
The US is largely responsible for the mess that is Syria (as it was for Libya - as it was for Iraq and Afghanistan) - along with the Netanyahu regime - and to read this report is most shocking! Some honesty might be an objective worth pursuing - might I suggest!
Fera (Frankfurt (Germany))
Is there any way we can help? I don't mean our governments or the UN etc, but you and me, the guys who read this article. What would you suggest?
Frank (Sydney)
sad - reminds me of the Hitler Youth - raised to fight, raised to wear military uniforms, raised to chant slogans about proudly giving their life for their Fatherland - then - some years later they actually got to do it.

The problem will be if they immigrate to a western country, grow up and later go off the rails and start trying to behead people - 'cos that's what they absorbed when they were little ...
Jenifer Wolf (New York)
That's the problem. Being human, we feel sorry for them when they're little. But we may have to fear them when they get big and maybe aren't the huge success they'd dreamed of (like most of us). They're trained to think that alternative success can be achieved through murdering as many people as possible.
Jamie Nichols (Santa Barbara)
The cruelties and barbarisms of our species as reported in this story no longer shock me. That a purportedly religiously motivated rebel force, Isis, compels children to watch beheadings does, however, make me both nauseous and curious. Putting aside the heinousness of any religiosity whose adherents behead human beings while extolling the greatness of their God, how can subjecting children to such horrific and mentally damaging spectacles be upheld by any theology or moral code? Is there not even the most basic human decency in the Islamism of Isis--that of the concern for the welfare of innocent children?

I for one would be interested in learning how those in Isis or its supporters justify or excuse not only the beheading of noncombatants, but more importantly the forcing of children to witness such heinous acts. Is there something in the Qur'an or Hadiths that arguably supports such actions, or is this simply a brutal and barbaric effort to terrorize and scar the unformed minds of the young? I seriously doubt the Prophet Mohammad would have countenanced what Isis has done to these poor kids.
Sandra Urgo (Minnesota)
I tell people that ISIS to Islam is like the KKK is to Christianity. These people use religion as a cover for their evil work. They quote or misquote sketchy verses in their religious texts to justify their murders. Humans have it in us to exercise extreme retribution, that is why Catholics and Lutherans (myself) always start each service with confession of sin, knowing that each of us could be capable of hatred and knowing that hate is the opposite of what God wants of us. Some religious people, of course, don't confess and have lost the self reflection that is necessary to truly follow Christs teachings. By the way, there are some pretty heinous calls to violence in the Old Testament, including admonishing parents to have disrespectful children put to death, which if known and followed literally, would greatly reduce the population level of teenagers in our country!
j. von hettlingen (switzerland)
Although the warring parties in Syria are responsible for the sufferings and grievances of millions of children, condemning them to grow up as a "lost generation," Syria's demographics had also played a role in this tragedy. In many cases, those who had the means had fled the country, leaving behind those who got stuck in Raqqa and other war zones, controlled by ISIS or other Islamist groups.
Even before the 2011 Arab Spring, Syria grappled with soaring population. Here is an excerpt from Reuters, June 3, 2010:
"Ibrahim Issa, a jovial Syrian taxi-driver who wears a blue robe over an ample belly, has nine children from two wives. He plans to marry a third wife soon.
He says it is up to Allah whether more children arrive, and not for him to interfere, say, by using contraception. Like all Damascus taxi-drivers, he complains about the cost of living and how hard it is to make ends meet on the $300 a month he earns."
j. von hettlingen (switzerland)
Refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey see also a surge in birth rates. Syrian men discourage their wives from using contraceptives, hoping to repopulate their country one day.
Anne-Marie Hislop (Chicago)
The children suffer so much when they caught in war. It will take many years and coordinated effort to help these children and youth. Some may think that it is not our problem, but of course it is. Children accustomed to such vicious violence may, untreated, turn to violence themselves for they become numb to it.

Similar experiences and suffering are also the reality in places like the poor, violent neighborhoods of our own cities. There, too, we must do more to rescue the children - and stop the violence.
Joshua Schwartz (Ramat-Gan)
Who's killing whom in Syria including civilians, women and children?
http://whoiskillingciviliansinsyria.org/

While it is most convenient to attack and fault ISIS for everything, a look at the statistics from the Syrian Network for Human Rights shows that it is the Assad regime which causes the most damage. Assad is not a new danger. He is old danger and is still the leading danger and will be so apparently for the foreseeable future.
Umar (New York)
Take a long look at Syria- we will have another Syria in Yemen soon.
Religious upheaval is everywhere- we truly have opened the Gates of Hell.
Henry (Connecticut)
Syria is one in a line of independent, secular, progressive Arab states – along with Iraq and Libya - that the US set out to conquer, deprive of independence, grab their resources and as necessary destroy. US policy has ravished Syrians. For the rulers of the US, the killing of 500,000 Iraqi children was a reasonable price to get rid of the secular, independent Iraq. Syrian children have been treated the same. The oil magnates and weapons makers didn’t pay. To the contrary they got rich.

In 1979, the US and its Saudi allies funded religious fanatics to take down a progressive movement in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda was born. In 2003, the US and its NATO allies took out secular Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq and ISIS were born. In 2011, the US took down the Libya. At the same time, the US and its Saudi, ISIS and Al Qaeda allies began to poured in guns and fanatics to take down Syria.

For the last 6 years the US government and corporate media demonized Assad, underplayed the terrorists and encouraged the destruction of Syria. And now, momentarily, the horrible truth comes out. Will the Times examine the role it played?

The great “Western democracies” did not bring democracy, modernism, health care, education, secularism to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria. To the contrary they extended every effort to prevent and reverse them. “Western” is supposed to refer to the Enlightenment. Never were words so empty. For much of the world, “Western” means anti-human.
Wine Country Dude (Napa Valley)
Your comment is unpersuasive. It relies far too much on hyperbole and tendentiousness. If your aim was simply to blow off steam, you succeeded beautifully. If it was to convert someone to your position, it failed.
Johnny (Los Angeles)
I didn't need converting, I already agreed with most everything Henry said.
Sandra Urgo (Minnesota)
If you know something of history, you will agree that western civilization, something we westerners promote as our own doing, is gifted from the east. While Europeans were eating grass, living in huts, killing each other regularly, During the DarkmAges the Middle East had mental hospitals, palaces and refinements completely foreign to the European hunyuckers who mostly lived in miserable huts, Ate mostly grasses, and who lived in such terrible conditions that the Church had easy work to indoctrinate them. It was the crusades that brought Europeans many of the things we enjoy and use-from foods, fabrics, weapons etc. Read The Crusades by Karen Armstrong and read the history of the Crusades to see what actually happened. Also, the above writer was correct in how AlQuada was born and how it really grew when Bush invaded Iraq. ( I have yet to read about the destabilization of Syria).If you read work by reputable writers, you will see how first Europe and then the U.S. caused the mayhem that resulted in so much death, destruction and terrorism that is in our world today. That is what should convince you, not simply a paragraph written by someone you never heard of
Royal Kingdom Greater Syria (Syria, U.S.)
It is our hope and prayer the U.S. government will do more to get rid of ISIS which was created as a direct outgrowth of U.S. invasion of our Iraqi province. We are pleased the U.S. is now supporting our Kurd allies against ISIS in Raqqa, Syria and progress is being made on other fronts as well.
still rockin (West Coast)
@Royal Kingdom Greater Syria,
Don't forget things were only rosy in Iraq if you were Sunni. The mass graves in the desert prove other wise, and the Kurds buried many of their own from Saddam's actions. It was our rockstar president who called ISIS a JV team, and then further destabilized Syria with his "red line" in the sand, and ended up giving Toyota's and who knows what else to ISIS. So if you really are from Syria answer me one question, "was life in Syria really that bad under Assad, or did you just get a little testy after watching the Arab Spring in Egypt, and was it worth over 500k dead, and millions displaced and entire cities and areas in ruin", Honestly was it really worth it? Think hard to make it sound like a winning endeavor, not just some delusional pipe dream!
Teed Rockwell (Berkeley, CA)
When Obama called ISIS the JV team, this was an accurate description. When the facts changed, he changed his strategy, and used negotiations and pressure to get our Arab allies to destroy the ISIS state while losing almost no American lives. Compare that to the Bush Administration's Trillion dollar war that cost thousands of American lives and made everything in the region even worse, and you see the difference between a president who knows his job, and one who merely poses and blusters. Never thought there could be a worse President, until Trump came along. Poor James Buchanan is now knocked down (up?) to being only the 3rd worst.
vishmael (madison, wi)
President Trump is considering converting one wing of his Mar A Lago estate to a respite sanctuary for these Syrian children. He and Eric Prince - based in nearby Bahrain - will both offer their private jet fleets gratis to ferry the tykes from their homeland war zone to the safety of Florida, generous of them of course although they'll not overlook the generous tax-write-offs for such donations.
Blake (pa dutch country)
Trump considers lots of things. How marvelous he is. How big the crowds were. How pretty Hillary would look behind bars. I, myself, have considered being Queen of England.
Jacqueline (Colorado)
When was the last time hundreds of people were beheaded, burned at the stake, blown up, smashed under heavy things. and thrown off tall things by organized groups of Christians under direction of the Pope?

I think the last time Christians went through a spasm of violence and killed large amounts (By large I mean over 1000 people, small groups of Christians have been going nuts and murdering a few people here and there constantly for 2000 years) of people was the Spanish Inquisition.

That was 500 years ago. I think Islam is experiencing its Inquisition moment now. Islam is at a huge disadvantage because there is no single leader for all Sunni or Shia Muslims that can tell the people with a bull that things have changed. However, there is still the fatwa, and I think that hopefully Islam will be the last major religion that has to undergo its obligatory eruption of bloodshed.

If the Sunnis can give up violence then we will live in a better world. The Shia are already there, and I think they have been for almost 500 years. If the Sunni can calm down and become more moderate, then most of the worlds problems would end.

The Israel problem would end if the Sunnis could negotiate in good faith. Saudi Arabia-influenced terrorism would end. Iran vs Saudi Arabia would end. Aghanistan would be peaceful. Pakistan vs India would moderate. Chechnya would stop murdering LGBT people and stop taking people hostage. Syria!!

It would be a better world if the Sunni would only moderate.
Royal Kingdom Greater Syria (Syria, U.S.)
Nice thoughts. Maybe more defeats for the militants will help Sunni to change attitudes. They should spend time in U.S. where there are dozens and dozens of different religions and people don't think that much about it.
still rockin (West Coast)
@Royal Kingdom Greater Syria,
Difference between Western religions and Islam is simple. People of Islam tailor their lives to suit their religion where as people of western religion tailor their religion to suit their lives! Life is day to day reality, religion at best is somewhat of a abstract guideline!
Tokujiro (Australia)
I think you might find the US under the banner of christianity abused and tortured and raped and murdered literally tens if not hundreds of thousands of people within its own borders - First Nations people, slaves...
Chris (Berlin)
Glad you pretend to care about Syrian children NOW.
The sickening pretense of the US freeing Syrians from Assad through its creation of ISIS first to subvert his government then viscously destroy a beautiful, ancient and diverse culture in endless supply of munitions to its proxies is only eclipsed by the sheer tonnage of saturating bombing of civilians in Vietnam under similar pretense.
Is there anyone left who believes that the US is a moral government?
Destroying sovereign nations, torturing people, murdering civilians, and using “annihilation tactics” in cities full of innocent people show this government to be no better than its evil creation, ISIS.

"Three years ago, Syria’s hospitals were the envy of the ME. The average life expectancy was 75, higher than in many parts of the UK. Nine out of every 10 medicines provided by the country’s extensive network of public and private clinics were made by the country’s own flourishing pharmaceutical industry. Back then, Syrians could expect a long healthy life, and care and comfort in times of sickness."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-in-crisis-cou...

Likewise education including University was State funded.
Then came the insurgency and bombs.
Strange how Nations that cannot seem to provide education and health care for their own like to take down those that do.

Syria, just another US war crime. Disgusting.
mjb (Tucson)
And your solutions for these kids are....?

You are just as disgusting, using this story to propel your own political ideas and understandings.
Royal Kingdom Greater Syria (Syria, U.S.)
You make a lot of valid points. For some time our policy was for isolation of the lawyer dominated U.S. government from Arab lands but not any more. We see constructive changes that should come under President Trump because he has said the invasion of Iraq was caused by lies of CIA that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Because of this we demand U.S. rebuild our Iraqi province with all underground utilities and while at it U.S. should include construction aid to help rebuild Syria. In the end it is our believe the U.S. can go a long ways to correcting the mistake of invasion of Iraq.
Chris (Berlin)
@ mjb

Solutions? How about starting to provide for them instead of continuing to arm crazy militias and prolonging the conflict?
Scott Jaeger (New Jersey)
This is the long term result of bad US foreign policy in the Middle East.
It didn't just start after 9/11 with George Bush. Its been going on since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the end of WWI. Here the invasion of Iraq helped create the vacuum for this horrific group to seize territory and make the lives of people unfortunate enough to live there even more miserable.
Bill (Joliet)
Kids liking beheadings and recruitment of another generation of killers. Islam has a lot of work to do to turn the tide of senseless violence. We too in the West will have our challenges. I am not too optimistic.
Geesam (Clumbia)
ISIS and its competitive groups sharing similar goals are Islamic Nazis and share the same concept as WWII's Japanese Kamikazes. They must be eliminated and re-educated, if that is possible. Similarly, there are those who need to be brought before a World court.
Januarium (California)
"Chopped-off heads were displayed in the town square."

That one sentence conveys the horror of this war, which most people in the US still don't grasp. Syria was a modern country with big cities full of people just like you, who worked in skyscrapers and watched funny YouTube videos and blogged about pop culture. Now it's a country where children have to watch their neighbors get beheaded on the street.

It's interesting that our cultural zeitgeist is currently dominated by the final season of a TV show with an iconic scene where a teenager has to look at the publicly displayed head of her own father. Somehow that resonates more in a fictional world where dragons exist than it does here in reality.
Kay (Oregon)
An organization backed by the US government. And these are the children that suffer at their hands or are exploited as propaganda tools to advance US goals for a pipeline in Syria and for the Samson option...
Mike Edwards (Providence, RI)
Aid workers are only now getting a picture?

Maybe but Syrian President, al-Assad has known all along about the barbaric acts committed by ISIS in his country. Hence, he has used every means - some pretty barbaric themselves - to dislodge them.

Russia and Iran are also facing off against the Sunni dominated ISIS and yet our Congress has imposed sanctions against them. How about some sanctions against those providing a religious platform and hard cash to ISIS?

Priorities, ladies and gentlemen of Congress, priorities.
Anne Flaherty (Amherst, MA)
Let us take action to save these young spirits. They are the messengers. It is the duty of healthy adults to create a safe space for these young ones who are still developing. No more war on their young minds, please. What to do? In the end it is reaction to our own empathy ability that matters. They are all our little brothers, and little sisters, and progeny. Boundaries mean nothing.
Fortress America (New York)
Are we ready for a war crimes tribunal yet?

or will we find a way to blame the West
Main Mama (Portland ME 04102)
This should be required reading.
steve (florida)
is there any doubt that ISIS is by far the worst manifestation of humanity ever to have existed in the history of humanity? Please let us obliterate them, give them a humiliating defeat, for the love of god, let's destroy ISIS already. The world does not need to keep hearing anout the horrors eminating from their caliphate. We have the means, lets detroy them once and for all
Martha (NYC)
Why do you think we can obliterate ISIS?