ISIS releases smartphone app for kids featuring cartoon missiles, knives and guns
A disturbing ISIS Arabic alphabet app for children has been released – and it contains cartoon tanks, guns and jihadist songs.
The ‘Huroof’ app was been released for Android, with the supposed intention of encouraging children to learn the Arabic alphabet.
The app uses bright colours with images of stars, balloons and flowers; typical images for children’s software
Within the games on the app, letters are associated with images, such as the Arabic letter “ba” being shown with a picture of a rifle.
Other examples like, “dal” with a tank, “ta” with a bullet and “sin” with a sword, are also featured on the children’s app.
A ‘nasheed’; a cappella Islamic song, is utilised on the app, in order to assist users in memorising the letters.
However, the song is filled with military based vocabulary, which encourages violence.
In a press release, ISIS stated that the app is to be used for teaching “the cubs the letters of the alphabet”.
“Cubs” is a term used to denote children who are part of the ISIS group, as grown militants are referred to as “lions”.
This is not the first time that ISIS has released apps for their users; ‘Alwari’ was released in January 2016 as an encrypted chat app, after ISIS members were removed from WhatsApp.
However, ‘Huroof’ is the first app to directed solely to children.
ISIS recently beheaded a 15-year-old who was suspected of being gay – and forced small children to watch as another suspected gay man was thrown off a building.
