The facts of the matter, regarding age of soldiers, throughout time, 1000's of years, is 12-13year old soldiers are not at all uncommon. Many religions believe, and teach a boy becomes a man on his 13th birthday. I don't know what the muslomic believe, but with all that said, young teenage boys make good fighters, always have. Our own history, that of America, even before we won the Revolution, all the way through to the War between the States, shows teenage boys made good soldiers. Do I approve of it? Hell no, but to act like this is unusual, or unprecedented is ignorant. I'd bet if one could gather such info, large numbers of young teenage boys are underarms in these shit hole countries. In the US they belong to street gangs, in the shithole countries they belong to some military gang. The bottom line is, they are just as deadly as a 21 year old or a 91 year old, if they are aiming and shooting at you.