Bottom line is that neither the Kurds nor their allied Arab, Yazidi or Syrian Christian militias will show any mercy towards foreign jihaddists. Nothing that can be typed on a keyboard or agreed at any round table will prevent local scores being settled either. I read a blog from one fighter apologizing in advance with regards to what would become of ISIS slave traders ....... he said they were bad people and deserve it.
The journalism in the above article is extremely poor as it provides no understanding or context of the battle for Raqqa. We can all be sorry for what happened to the 2 boys BUT it was Sharrouf's decision to place them in an ISIS fighting position. ISIS is using children of this age to support fighting positions and very young teenagers as suicide bombers.
With respect, the grandparents previous criticism of the Australian Government for not doing more get these kids out was nonsensical. How could anyone get them out? How did they get there? Presumably they went to Turkey first and they crossed a porous border with their idiotic mother.
The SDF are also facing heavy losses as they encounter well prepared/layered defenses from ISIS extremists who are prepared to die. Corridors are opened (where possible) to allow civilians to flee and conscripted local ISIS fighters (along with child soldiers) can always surrender .... on an understanding that they will be released soon.
One problem that the SDF has is that they have light weaponry that can be supported by air strikes or heavy USMC artillery. They don't have much in between and as a result, many areas of Raqqa are akin to Stalingrad. It took one SDF unit 2 days of fighting to move up a few levels in a multi story structure. ISIS also use tunnels to hit SDF positions from behind.
