Isis murders four-year-old boy using remote-controlled explosives

Jihadists fighting for Isis in northern Iraq have murdered a four-year-old boy with explosives just a week after executing his father, it has been claimed.

Speaking to the Iraqi news network Al Sumaria, Jabar el-Maamour - a spokesman and senior official in the anti-Isis, state-sponsored Popular Mobilisation rebel group – said he was revealing details of the murder in which the boy had the explosives strapped to his body as a way of condemning Isis’ supporters and fundraisers.

According to el-Maamour, the boy’s death came a week after his father was murdered having being found guilty of a December attack on an Isis checkpoint that killed two jihadis.

Al-Shirqat, which lies off the main road between Tikrit and Mosul, is considered one of Isis’ major strongholds in northern Iraq. Its strategic position on the edge of the Nineveh plain has made it a key target for anti-Isis forces who hope to eventually push the terror group out of the oil-rich city of Mosul, which acts as the militants’ de facto nerve centre in Iraq.

The news comes as new details emerge outlining the extent to which Isis scientists and weapons experts have developed sophisticated new weaponry capable of shooting down passenger jets.

In an exclusive Sky News report, Isis militants were seen at a “jihadi university” in the terror group’s de facto capital city Raqqa, building remote-controlled vehicles and other advanced weaponry that could be used in terror attacks.

Newly emerged footage shows militants at the group's Syrian base in Raqqa creating a homemade thermal battery, for use in decommissioned military surface-to-air missiles.

Experts say terror groups have had access to such weapons for decades - but storing them and creating the thermal battery vital to the missile's function is very difficult without advanced knowledge.

Kim Sengupta, the Independent’s defence correspondent, said the development was especially significant.

“After the US and UK entered Afghanistan in 2001, there were fears that Stinger missiles given by the Americans to the Afghan Mujaheddin to shoot down Russian aircraft may be used by the Taliban against the Western forces" he said.