Hezbollahs summer camps for junior jihadis pose a mortal threat to peace

It’s summer camp season, when kids across America roast marshmallows and compete in games of color war.But in Lebanon, camps run by Iran-backed Hezbollah are preparing children for holy war instead.Every summer, the terror group’s Imam al-Mahdi Scout camps indoctrinate Shiite youth — and even offer paramilitary training to older members.Scores of former Mahdi Scouts have joined Hezbollah’s ranks.And as Israel and Lebanon continue negotiations after their recent agreement to disarm Hezbollah, this key terrorist recruitment pipeline can only undermine the slim chance for peace.   The Imam al-Mahdi Scouts, established in the mid-1980s and recognized by the Lebanese government in 1992, pledge to advance Wilayat al Fiqih, or the “guardianship of the jurist” — that is, the teachings of Iran’s supreme leader.Primarily underwritten by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the group now boasts 75,000 registered male and female scouts.This summer, the youngest Mahdi Scouts are busy with tug-of-war, soccer games and cooking potatoes in campfires, the group’s website explains.Tween members are performing community service, clearing rubble from villages and preparing care packages for Shiite children displaced by the latest war Hezbollah launched against Israel.But older scouts have a different, decidedly less benign schedule.In July, teenagers and counselors took a field trip to Iran to attend the funeral of Iran’s late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, who was killed on the first day of the Iran war by an Israeli airstrike.When scouts turn 16, they’re offered “literacy training” — a course in the basics of weaponry.Over the summer, the teenage scouts receive more intensive training in different types of armaments.Early on, campers are taught the values of “resistance” and “sacrifice.”In July, the group organized a ceremony to honor former scouts who graduated to join Hezbollah — and were killed while fighting Israel.An arti...