Philip Seib, Dana M. Janbek: Global Terrorism and New Media: The Post-Al Qaeda Generation, 2010 p.6
Newsweek - Volume 74, Issues 18-26 - Page 42 - 1969 When Al Fatah opened training camps for 8- to 15-year-old "Lion Cubs" last spring, the response was immediate. Now, on playgrounds of Palestinian refugee camps, Yasir Arafat's young lions— many of them dressed in cut-down combat ...
Peter W. Singer: Facing Saddam’s Child Soldiers. Tuesday, January 14, 2003. Brookings Institution Iraq has also organized several child soldier units. Some of these units fall under the rubric of the Futuwah (Youth Vanguard) movement, a Ba’ath party organ formed in the late 1970s and aimed at establishing a paramilitary organization among children at secondary school level. In this regime-run program, children as young as 12 are organized into units and receive military training and political indoctrination. Units of this force were even pressed into service during the nadir of Iraqi fortunes in the war against Iran (in the mid-1980s).
The most important Iraqi child soldier units, though, are the Ashbal Saddam (Saddam Lion Cubs). This is a more recent organization, formed after the defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, when the regime’s hold on power faltered. The Ashbal Saddam involve boys between the ages of 10 and 15, who attend military training camps and learn the use of small arms and infantry tactics. The camps involve as much as 14 hours per day of military training and political indoctrination. They also employ training techniques intended to desensitize the youth to violence, including frequent beatings and deliberate cruelty to animals. The exact numbers of the Ashbal Saddam are not known, but there are an estimated 8,000 members in Baghdad alone.