In Mosul orphanage, Islamic State groomed child soldiers

Math and English textbooks found in an Islamic State facility for child fighters, which include military imagery, are pictured in Mosul, Iraq, February 16, 2017. Picture taken February 16, 2017. REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - When the boys first arrived at the Islamic State training facility in eastern Mosul they would cry and ask about their parents, who went missing when the militants rampaged through northern Iraq in 2014.

But as the weeks passed they appeared to absorb the group's ultra-hardline ideology, according to a worker at the former orphanage where they were housed.