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A boy who looks no older than 12 kisses the hand of his dad before killing himself in a suicide bomb attack in this harrowing ISIS propaganda.

He is identified as Abu Imara al-Omri and is seen wielding a gun and staring purposefully into the distance. Another scene in the video shows him being given a pep talk by an older jihadi and shown how to drive and detonate a heavily-armoured truck bomb.

Al-Omri is believed to have died in an attack on Syrian regime forces at the village of Ghazl near Aleppo, in Syria.

The boy is just one of an estimated 89 brainwashed youngsters the terror group have sent to die in the last year.

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The Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the US Military Academy at West Point analysed Islamic State's sickening media machine and discovered they are sacrificing more and more young lives to their unholy war.

Of the 89 cases, 39 per cent of the youngsters died in car and truck bombs, a third in battle and six per cent died acting a propagandists embedded with ISIS fighters.

Chillingly, nearly half of the children featured in the terror group's videos and pictures are smiling.

In many, the children are shown in fields and meadows to show the paradise the terror group says awaits them.

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One shows a clearly pre-adolescent child smiling at the camera with a back to front cap on while enjoying a fairground ride.

A CTC report said: "It seem plausible that, as military pressure against the Islamic State has increased, such operations are becoming more tactically attractive.

"They represent an effective form of psychological warfare - to project strength pierce defenses and strike fear into enemy soldier's hearts."