In Syria and Iraq, the Al Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) is now kidnapping boys as young as 10 years old to “recruit” them for a Shari’a (Islamic law) army whose ultimate goal is to “liberate” Jerusalem.

Some of the boys are joining up voluntarily, according to a report posted on the RT website. But many more are being conscripted against their will, and forced to fight in a jihad (Islamist holy war) they barely understand.

The two terrorists killed last Friday in Gaza in a surgical air strike by Israeli fighter pilots were both members of ISIS who had infiltrated the region. The terrorist group has begun to make its way towards Israel via the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and Hamas-ruled Gaza. It has already seized control of the sole border crossing between Jordan and Iraq — a victory that prompted the United States to send troops overseas to “advise” officials in the Iraqi army, and quietly assist its ally, Jordan.

The report in RT quoted The Daily Beast, which described the youngest known ISIS fighter, 10-year-old ‘Abdullah,’ fighting with the group in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

The report described the young boy – who in this case joined up voluntarily, following his father and brother — as being masked and toting a heavy machine gun that was “about as big as him.”

But equally disturbing was the declaration by a gunman with the boy who told the news outlet, “We believe they will conquer all of Iraq and Persia and that they will liberate Jerusalem.

“They have a dream and their dream is to establish an Islamic state.”

Children in the ISIS bases undergo a 25-day course in which they are taught an extremist form of Islam and Shari’a law in daily classes, as well as the principles of jihad ideology. In addition, they are given field and combat training and are taught to use weapons, ITV reported.

The United Nations has apparently confirmed at least some of the above, noting in its annual report published in May, “children fighting in Syria with ISIS are reportedly paid like adults (35,000 Syrian pounds, approx. $200) and undergo both weapons and jihadist indoctrination training.”

Some of the children are subsequently sent on suicide bombing missions, according to a report published on June 24 by the Human Rights Watch organization.

The ISIS force currently fighting in Iraq is comprised of some 7,000 to 10,000 guerrillas.

Jordan’s safety is an Israeli national priority, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman told reporters at a briefing in Berlin on Monday.

The Israeli government will do everything possible to preserve Jordanian stability, Liberman said following his meeting with Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

“Jordan’s stability is a vital interest for the State of Israel,” Liberman said. “Without going into details, we will do everything to maintain the stability of Jordan.”

It was the strongest public statement of commitment made to Jordanian security by a senior Israeli official to date.

The German foreign minister concurred, adding that the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant (ISIL) – also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams or Syria (ISIS) “constitutes a serious threat to the territorial integrity of Iraq and the entire region… “Steinmeier underlined it was essential to ensure that “ISIS cannot tighten its grip [on the region] and the caliphate it declared does not turn into a center for terror and violence… We have seen from clashes in the Golan Heights how events in the region can affect the security of Israel. We must ensure that a solution is found for the internal problems in Iraq, and establish a government that will represent proportionally all communities and factions to detract support for ISIS from the Sunni population.”

Israel maintains that American military training did not help Iraqi forces fend off the Al Qaeda-linked ISIL takeover in the northern and central part of the country.

The take-away lesson: Israel cannot and will not hand over the defense of its nation to a third party in the Jordan Valley – not now, not ever.

The Pentagon is upset by that, because the United States wants to advance a plan formulated by U.S. General John Allen to replace the Israel Defense Forces in the Jordan Valley with an international force.

Allen, an expert on counter-terrorism with experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, contends that Israel faces completely different threats than those in Iraq.

The Pentagon and State Department both insist that Israel should trust American military officials to know what they are doing.

But Israeli officials said bluntly in a report published Monday night – speaking on condition of anonymity – that the Americans are misreading the signals and possibly the map, much as they did in Iraq.

And they don’t want to see a repetition of that disaster here on home ground.

More than 1,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, have died in mass murders by radical Islamists in the last three weeks, the United Nations reports, calling the figure “very much a minimum.”

Terrorists from the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant (ISIL) – or as it is called in Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams or Syria (ISIS), seized nearly the entire northern section of Iraq. The group captured the largest city in the north – Mosul – and the hometown of former dictator Sadaam Hussein, Tikrit, among others.

ISIL is now threatening Iraq’s border with Turkey, and earlier this month kidnapped a Turkish Consul and 80 Turkish contractors and workers from an eastern city. Turkey immediately evacuated its staff from the Turkish Consulate in Basra, located in southern Iraq.

The group’s forces are also threatening Iraq’s eastern border with Iran.

In addition, ISIL has captured a wide area in Iraq’s central region and is rapidly advancing to the west, having already captured one border crossing into Jordan, in addition to two border crossings with Syria. The group’s forces are beginning to move south towards Baghdad.

The group’s goal is to create an Islamic state, a Caliphate, run entirely by Shari’a (Islamic) law.

At present, ISIL has managed to blur the border between Iraq and Syria – with members of the group on both sides of the boundary – and is presenting a real and present danger to Jordan.

It is this threat to another American ally that Israel is pointedly referring to in its discussions with the United States, which blithely assured the Iraqi government it would “help push back this aggression” even as it pulled its forces out of Iraq two and a half years ago. Despite the infusion of billions of U.S. dollars, Iraqi security forces were inadequately trained and completely unable to meet the challenge of fending off the ISIL guerrilla fighters.

Jordan managed to prevent the United Nations Security Council from condemning the kidnapping of three Israeli teens by Arab terrorists on June 12, after repeated attempts to force a statement condemning Israel along with the terrorists.

Jordan attempted to sneak in the condemnation of Israel in the Council’s resolution aginst the kidnapping Monday at a session of the U.N. Security Council, but the United States blocked it. The move came in maneuvers to work out wording of a statement to media condemning the kidnapping.

Jordan wanted to include wording to condemn Israel for “collective punishment” of the Palestinian Authority population … and a call for “both sides to exercise restraint,” according to a Council diplomat. In the end, the Hashemite Kingdom succeeded in preventing the Security Council from issuing any statement condemning the kidnapping at all.

Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters, “Unfortunately, members of the Security Council were not able to find common ground. Some delegates want to have very strong language condemning Israel, another delegation did not want to have any reference to Israel at all.”

Israeli U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor said in a statement following the meeting, “Some nations behave as if Israel should roll out the welcome mat for Hamas. Israel will not allow this terrorist group to trample on its citizens. Israelis are acting in self-defense.”

The Jordanian military has sent troops to its border with Iraq after the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams, or ISIS) captured the Turaibil border crossing between Iraq and Jordan.

Dozens of Jordanian military units have been sent to the area to cover the border and prevent the terrorist organization from advancing any further. Jordan is an ally of the United States and has a peace treaty with Israel.

The jihadists also seized the Walid and Qaim border crossings with Syria over the weekend, as well as four towns, according to a report posted Monday by the Irish Times.

The group now controls a 300-kilometer swathe of territory along the Euphrates River, from Mosul in the north, to Tikrit, hometown of former dictator Sadaam Hussein, in addition to its newly-won length of the Iraqi border.

Al Qaeda-linked Sunni militants from the Islamic State of Iraq in Syria captured key two border crossings on Sunday — including one that leads from Iraq directly into Jordan. The other is a crossing into Syria.

Jordanian officials have been dreading this possibility for weeks and monitoring the situation across the border for some time.

The terrorist group has also seized four more towns, further broadening the wide swathe of territory already under its control. That band of ISIS-controlled land now spreads from nearly all of northern Iraq, to the eastern part of the country, and beginning to bleed down to the south, and into the west – where Jordan lies.

Beyond Jordan, ISIS hopes to eventually reach the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza and then finally Israel. Less than a month ago, terrorists from the group kidnapped a Turkish consul in Tikrit and 80 Turkish citizens. Many are still being held hostage.

The terrorist group’s dream of carving out an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or an Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant (ISIL) as it is called in Iraq, is rapidly advancing.

A top military intelligence official in Iraq told CBC News on condition of anonymity that the militants’ objective is Baghdad, “where we are working frantically to bolster our defenses.” But the Iraqi military is badly outgunned, he admitted. “I will be honest with you,” he said. “Even that is not up to the level of what is needed. Morale is low.”

Jihadists from neighboring Arab nations – as well as from European countries and even from as far away as the United States – are being drawn to the battle as flies to honey and are traveling to join the conflict, as in the past they traveled to fight in Syria.

Those who have already acquired their objectives in Iraq are now supplying their fellow jihadists in Syria with weaponry won in recent battles to fight in the civil war across the border – or at least, until there is no border.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has served in office since 2006, has not given any indication he intends to step down. But as he did in Cairo, U.S. President Barack Obama has sent signals he no longer supports the Iraqi leader during the crisis, although he agreed t osend 300 military advisers to retrain Iraqi troops. Obama also said he might consider air strikes to support the Iraqi military, but did not make any commitments.

With Iran opposing American involvement, it seems likely Obama will drag his heels as much as possible, fearing to intervene and offend Iranian sensibilities.

The new Iraqi parliament, set to meet by the end of this month, is expected to elect a speaker and a new president. The president-elect will then ask the leader who wins a simple majority of the 328-member parliament to form the new government.

During the most recent election, al-Maliki’s ‘State of the Law’ party won the most mandates – 92 – but it is not enough to pull a majority for a new coalition government, especially in light of the current crisis.