What's next for ISIL's child soldiers?
Kasswara* joined ISIL when he was 14. "We were the 'cleaners' group. Cleaning means slitting the throats of those who belong to the other side and are hiding," the teenager from Raqqa, Syria , said. "A guy from my area was decapitated by [ISIL] because of me. People had their hands chopped off because of me." Since the start of the Syrian civil war , armed groups have been using child soldiers in combat. ISIL, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group, is thought to have recruited around 2,000 children. They are called "ashbal al khilafa", the "lion cubs of the caliphate". Kasswara, who is now 16, fled ISIL, also known as ISIS, after being sexually assaulted and is currently living in Greece. He tells his story in Witness: Lion cubs of ISIL . Like Kasswara, a number of former cubs have fled to Europe where they live in anonymity. And with ISIL swiftly losing ground in Iraq and Syria, more child soldiers are b