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The British vicar of Baghdad revealed the youngsters were murdered in cold blood after refusing to give in when the jihadists gave them one last chance to say the Islamic words of conversion.

The Rev Canon Andrew White is now in hiding in Israel after jihadists put a price on his head but still in telephone contact with his flock in Iraq.

He revealed how the brave children refused to say they would follow the prophet Muhammad and told the knife-wielding fighters they would always "love" and "follow" Jesus.

Rev White said: "IS turned up and they said to the children, 'you say the words that you will follow Muhammad.'

"The children, all under 15, four of them, they said: 'No, we love Yasua (Jesus). We have always loved Yasua. We have always followed Yasua. Yasua has always been with us.’

"The militants said, 'say the words’.

"The children said, 'no, we can't do that'.

"They chopped all their heads off."

The 60-year-old cleric, a dad-of-two, from Bexley, Kent, said: "How do you respond to that?

"You just cry.

"They are my children.

"That is what we have been going through. That is what we are going through."

Rev White revealed a few days before the beheadings a Christian man was forced to say the Islamic words of conversion to prevent all his children being executed.

The clergyman said the man later called him on his mobile phone to ask if Jesus still loved him even though he had said the words of conversion.

"I said, 'Jesus still loves you. He will always love you’," the clergyman said.

Rev White, who received personal death threats IS, said it was "impossible" for Christians to live in Iraq because of the terror network’s brutal mistreatment of religious minorities.

"They have threatened to kill me," he said.

"They are after me.

"So the Archbishop of Canterbury said, 'you've got to leave now’."

Yesterday two men were charged under the Terrorism Act for helping a 17-year-old travel to join the conflict in Syria.

Kaleem Brekke, 18, from Grangetown, Cardiff, and Forhad Rahman, 20, from Cirencester, Gloucestershire, were accused of assisting Aseel Muthana, from Cardiff, in the preparation of an act of terrorism.

The teenager left the UK in February using a recently obtained passport.

He followed his 20-year-old medical student brother Nasser who, along with Reyaad Khan, 20, from Cardiff, appeared in a video posted online by IS militants urging Muslims to join them in holy war in Iraq.