Nearby, a little boy hums a jihadist anthem as he walks beside his mother, his jacket covered with dust.

The so-called “cubs of the caliphate” — boys raised under IS rule and trained to fight from a young age — are the reason the group will survive, another Iraqi woman says.

“The caliphate will not end, because it has been ingrained in the hearts and brains of the newborns and the little ones,” says the 60-year-old, refusing to give her name.

Many women tell AFP that they want to raise their children on the ideology of the caliphate, even as its territorial presence fizzles out.