Children as young as eight are being recruited as IS soldiers and suicide bombers. Dateline reveals disturbing images of them in action and the punishment for those who don’t obey.

A LITTLE boy hacks the head off a teddy bear and holds up his knife proudly to the camera. A class of youngsters chants: “Here, here, here comes the state of Islam ... If they call me a terrorist, I will consider it an honour.”

Then the most shocking scenes unfold. A child not much older beheads a Syrian officer, and another executes two Russian spies by cutting their throats.

The videos made by the Islamic State are as sickeningly violent as ever, but this time, the terrorists have gone one better: these bloodthirsty soldiers are children.

IS is building its army for the next generation, moulding recruits before they are old enough to know anything else, and creating the perfect jihadists. It now controls tens of thousands of children in Syria and Iraq.

In June, a video showed 25 children unflinchingly shooting 25 captured Syrian soldiers in the head, while others practised chopping the heads off dolls with swords at training camps. Boys are hit by combat trainers, encouraged to punch each other, and taught to shoot from close range. The line between fantasy and reality becomes ever thinner.

Those who resist radicalisation find themselves running for their lives. Omar, 14, was tortured for a month and a half and publicly mutilated for refusing to join the extremists. “They put my hand on a wooden block and cut off my hand with a butcher’s knife,” he told Dateline from Turkey,days after fleeing Syria. “Then they cut off my foot and put them both in front of me for me to see.”

Tonight’s Dateline: IS Child Recruits on SBS meets teenagers who have escaped the militants, and discovers how the terrorists spread their message of hatred and fear to the innocent. Children are met at mosques and offered food, money and toys,” journalist Evan Williams told news.com.au. “They’re gradually brought into IS thinking.

“It starts with physical training. They wake early for morning prayers, they’re taught to withstand temperatures where they’re submerged in freezing cold water, they walk for miles, they are physically toughened. They are taught all the time, ‘listen and obey.’ They come out effectively brainwashed. Those who get out are heavily traumatised.”

These “Cubs of the caliphate” are taken from their families, gathered from orphanages and rounded up in public squares. It’s not just boys — girls are forced to marry IS members, or are recruited as suicide bombers themselves. They are indoctrinated in jihadist ideology, trained in military operations and forced to watch executions on big screens and in person.

Once they become numb to the violence, they are ready to be killing machines.

“It’s a form of brutalisation, it’s dehumanising,” says Williams. “They’re creating soldiers, a new army that could potentially change the face of the Middle East.”

The kids learn to see sacrifice as a great honour. “I gave everything I had for Islamic State’s victory,” says escapee Abu Ibrahim*, revealing that the youngest suicide bomber he met was just eight years old.

Children are now used as weapons with alarming frequency in the Middle East. Recent video from Shaam Network showed kids being transported in metal cages on the backs of trucks through Syria’s streets by rebels. Footage has shown children as young as five training for killing, while

In March, a 10-year-old “young lion of the Khilafah” was seen pointing a gun at Arab-Israeli captive Muhammad Musallam, although it was unclear if he had pulled the trigger.

Australian jihadist Khaled Sharrouf achieved infamy last year after he posted a photo online of his young son holding up a severed head, and further images showed them holding assault rifles and submachine-guns. Meanwhile, IS is planning even further ahead by pushing a “jihadi baby boom.”

Former recruits face a long road to recovering from their ordeal. Even once they get out of Syria, they are not safe, with IS extending its influence over border towns day by day, hunting down “nonbelievers.”

Most of the teenagers escape with the help of family members, but everyone is terrified, and two men known to the filmmakers were killed in Turkey last week.

“It’s very dangerous,” says Williams. “The Islamic State is not a group of ragtag rebels. They’re not here, in their minds, for just a couple of weeks. They’re building up for the future.”

Have your say in the comments, email emma.reynolds@news.com.au or tweet @emmareyn and @newscomauHQ.

Watch the full story of the IS Child Recruits on tonight’s Dateline at 9.30pm on SBS.

*Name changed to protect identity