15-year-old failed suicide bomber explains what life inside of ISIS was like

A 15-year-old would-be suicide bomber was captured and stripped of his explosives near a football stadium in Kirkuk, Iraq in August of 2016.  The young man was, reportedly, brainwashed by ISIS as part of a string of youth indoctrination the organization uses.

Upon capture, Mahmoud Ahmed, the young man, explained what he had gone through.

"Twenty-four hours a day they’d teach us about this stuff," he says.  "There were 60 of us born from 2002 onwards.

"They would scare us and would show videos of beheadings and stuff like that."

He says that he and other children were part of a group within ISIS called the "cubs of caliphate" and that they were told, as parental truth, that they would be rewarded in heaven for their actions.

At the time of the near-bombing, Ahmed says that he was kidnapped by ISIS soldiers and strapped with explosives.  He was ordered into the football stadium by an older teenager named Dureed and told to blow himself up.

Ahmed said he ‘was hesitating’ and ‘there was something inside me that was resisting. I couldn’t do it’.

Fortunately, his conscience took hold.   He said that being caught by security officers was a relief, however he is facing a 10-year prison sentence after trial.