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BEIRUT — Teenagers carrying weapons stand at checkpoints and busy intersections in Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul. Patched onto the left arms of their black uniforms are the logos of the Islamic Police.

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In Raqqa, the de facto Syrian capital of the Islamic State of Iraq & Al-Sham (ISIS), boys attend training camp and religious courses before heading off to fight. Others serve as cooks or guards at the extremists’ headquarters or as spies, informing on locals.

Across the vast region under ISIS control, the group is conscripting children for battle and committing abuses against the most vulnerable, according to a growing body of evidence assembled from residents, activists, independent experts and human rights groups.

In the northern Syrian town of Kobani, where ethnic Kurds have been resisting an ISIS onslaught for weeks, children have been seen fighting alongside the jihadists. One man said he saw the bodies of four boys, two of them younger than 14. At least one 18-year-old is said to have carried out a suicide attack.