US President Joe Biden’s administration has acknowledged that its ally, the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), is forcibly recruiting child soldiers in the fight against the democratically-elected government in Damascus.

The US State Department revealed in a new report that the SDF is on a list of terrorist groups involved in child soldiering crimes, next to Takfiri Daesh terror outfit, and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly known as Al-Nusrah Front.

“The recruitment or use of children in combat and support roles in Syria remains common, and since the beginning of 2018 international observers reported continued incidents of recruitment and use by armed groups, though the prevalence of the practice differs by group,” the report said.

The State Department stressed that the armed outfits “recruit and/or use boys and girls as child soldiers.”

The report said the SDF was implementing a UN Security Council-mandated action plan to end the recruitment and use of children and demobilize those in its ranks, “however, an international organization reported SDF-affiliated armed groups recruited and used children in 2022 and 2023.”

The US State Department added that the HTS and Daesh “used children as human shields, suicide bombers, snipers, and executioners,” while some armed groups “use children for forced labor and as informants, exposing them to retaliation and extreme punishment.”

The report also named the so-called Revolutionary Youth Movement as a radical armed Kurdish outfit that continues to recruit children “through fraudulent announcements for educational courses in northeast Syria.”

Washington’s support for the SDF has long been a point of contention with its Nato ally, Turkey, which has deployed its occupation forces in northeast Syria under the pretext of fighting anti-Ankara militant groups.

Ankara views the SDF as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long war for independence against Turkey and is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the European Union.

Since March 2011, Syria has been gripped by a campaign of militancy and destruction sponsored by the US and its allies.

In recent years, however, Syrian government forces have managed to win back control of almost all regions from terrorist groups.

The US military has stationed its forces and equipment in northeastern Syria, with the Pentagon claiming that the deployment is aimed at preventing the oil fields in the area from falling into the hands of Daesh terrorists.

Damascus maintains that the deployment is meant to plunder Syria’s natural resources. Former US President Donald Trump admitted on several occasions that American forces were in the Arab country for its oil wealth.