Child soldiers join Iraq's new civil war

As the Islamic State for Iraq and the Levant/Syria (ISIS) pushes to less than 50 miles from Baghdad, pictures are emerging which depict what looks like armed child soldiers.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - A shocking video has emerged showing a group of boys watching the executing of a prisoner by masked gunmen who are members of the ISIS jihad group. In the video, the prisoner was made to kneel in the dirt before he was shot in the head.

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The video was uploaded onto YouTube with the chilling message: "Brutal sectarian war has come again to Iraq and many say it's as bad as the dark days of 2007."

This video follows two days of disgusting propaganda which ISIS has been posting online. Videos that how their black-uniformed fighters humiliating, taunting and then executing captured Iraqi soldiers, some who were shot as they lay in shallow graves.

The United Nations have even declared that ISIS fighters have carried out hundreds of summary executions since their offensive against Iraq's capital began last week, including the massacres of captured Iraqi soldiers.

While Iraq continues to fall into chaos, the U.S. has sent 275 soldiers and Marines to Baghdad to protect the embassy there. ISIS fighters have launched an attack on the town of Baquba, just 37 miles away, where Iraqi soldiers and Shiite militia had apparently stalled the ISIS advance.

In a police station, 44 prisoners are said to have been killed, though there is conflicting reports as to how.

ISIS militants have been joined by numerous Sunni factions, including tribal figures who were once loyal to the U.S. and former members of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. Meanwhile, in Iraq's north, Kurdish fighters have taken over several towns that Iraqi security forces have evacuated, though they are not working with ISIS.

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