Summer camp for Iraqi boys training to fight Daesh

Baghdad - "We've been called to defend the nation," the scrawny boy asserted, his voice cracking as he vowed to join the Popular Mobilization Forces.

In the steamy Baghdad night, sweat poured down the faces of the Iraqi teens as they marched around a school courtyard, training for battle against Daesh. 
This is summer camp in Iraq calling on students as young as middle-school age to use their summer vacations to prepare to fight the extremists. 
Dressed in military fatigues, 15-year-old Asam Riad was among the dozens of youths doing high-knee marches, his chest puffed out to try to appear as tall as the older cadets. 
"We've been called to defend the nation," the scrawny boy asserted, his voice cracking as he vowed to join the Popular Mobilization Forces. 
"I am not scared because my brothers are fighting alongside me." 
With dozens of such camps around the country, hundreds of students have gone through the training though it is impossible to say how many went on to fight the extremists since those who do so go independently. 
This summer, The Associated Press saw over a dozen armed boys on the front line in western Anbar province, including some as young as 10. Of around 200 cadets in a training class visited by the AP this month, about half were under the age of 18, with some as young as 15. Several said they intended to join their fathers and older brothers on the front lines. 
Among those training in the streets of Baghdad, 15-year-old Jaafar Osama said he used to want to be an engineer when he grows up, but now he wants to be a fighter. His father is a volunteer fighting alongside the Shia militias in Anbar and his older brother is fighting in Beiji, north of Baghdad. 
"God willing, when I complete my training I will join them, even if it means sacrificing my life to keep Iraq safe," he said. 
Neighbourhood youths were taught to hold, control and aim light weapons, though they didn't fire them. They also took part in public service activities like holding blood drives and collecting food and clothing.
In response, the Popular Mobilization Forces set up summer camps in neighbourhoods from Baghdad to Basra. A spokesman for the group, Kareem Al Nouri, said the camps give "lessons in self-defense" and underage volunteers are expected to return to school by September, not go to the battle front. 
A spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister's office echoed that. There may be "some isolated incidents" of underage fighters joining combat on their own, Saad Al Harithi told the AP. "We are a government that frowns upon children going to war," he said. 
The UN convention does not ban giving military training to minors. But Jo Becker, the advocacy director of the children's rights division at Human Rights Watch, said that it puts children at risk.

• MENA