WaPo: "As Syrian rebels’ losses mount, 15 years old begin filling ranks"

"... After more than two years of conflict that has already claimed more than 100,000 lives, some rebel commanders defend the use of teenage fighters as inevitable.“Many of these young men’s fathers and older brothers have died before them,” said Abu Diyaa al-Hourani, commander of a Free Syrian Army battalion outside the Syrian border town of Sheikh al-Maskin. He said that Syrians as young as 15 serve in his 800-man unit, whose average age has plunged to 19, down from 25 not long ago...."