76 QIL 60 (2019) 69-97 ZOOM IN FTFs are likely to face criminal investigation − if not already initiated in absentia − and administrative and/or criminal measures. 2.2. Children of ISIS as a ‘Ticking Time Bomb’? Children in the ranks of ISIS have been often defined as a ‘ticking time bomb’, also by the EU Counter Terrorism Coordinator, who recently warned States about the worrying fate of children detained in Iraq if they – and their mothers – do not have access to effective disengagement and deradicalization processes.30 Generally speaking children associated with armed forces or armed groups get there in one of three ways: they are abducted or conscripted through force or serious threats; they present themselves and become enlisted/enrolled; or they are born into armed forces or groups.31 Unlike other non-State armed groups/terrorist organizations, under the ISIS rule child soldiering affected the whole family unit as many adults who moved to Syria and Iraq brought their next of kin along with them or started a family there.32 Fighters were encouraged to train their children to become the next generation of jihadists, ‘lion cubs’ (or ashbal),33 allowing ISIS to forge and groom its more loyal members. There is compelling evidence that in the ranks of ISIS children as young as six have been exposed to jihadi indoctrination and that they started to receive military training at the age of nine.34 As a result, the widespread fear that children 30 T Kington, ‘45,000 Children of ISIS “Are Ticking Time Bomb”’ The Times (8 May 2019) <www.thetimes.co.uk/article/45-000-children-of-isis-are-ticking-time-bomblp0nq9q2m>. 31 M Drumbl, Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy (OUP 2012) 132; F Capone, Reparations for Child Victims of Armed Conflict: State of the Field and Current Challenges (Intersentia 2017) 50-51. 32 M Bloom, J Horgan, ‘The Rise of the Child Terrorist’ Foreign Affairs (9 February 2015) <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2015-02-09/rise-child-terrorist>; F Capone, ‘“Worse” than Child Soldiers? A Critical Analysis of Foreign Children in the Ranks of ISIL’ (2017) 17 Intl Criminal L Rev 161, 175-176. 33 N Benotman, N Malik, ‘The Children of Islamic State’ Quilliam Foundation (7 March 2016) 25-27 <www.quilliaminternational.com/quilliam-releases-report-onchildren-in-the-caliphate/>. 34 ‘Report of the Secretary-General, Children and Armed Conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic’ UN Doc S/2018/969 (30 October 2018) para 17. A Almohammad, ‘ISIS Child Soldiers in Syria: The Structural and Predatory Recruitment, Enlistment, Pre-Training Indoctrination, Training, and Deployment’ ICCT (19 February 2018) 19-22