Feds urged to act on ISIS 'caliphate cubs' born to Canadians

Retired Lt.-Gen. Romeo Dallaire speaks to CTV News, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016.

Ottawa is being urged to take action on so-called ‘caliphate cubs’ after CTV News revealed Monday that at least five Canadians ISIS brides have given birth or become pregnant in Syria.

Retired Lt.-Gen. Romeo Dallaire said the many child soldiers being used in Syria are “a cut above in horror and mass atrocities than the ones we have seen the past.”

Dallaire said a strategy needs to be developed to recover the mothers and de-program the children who will inevitably become child soldiers indoctrinated to hate Canada.

Interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose said Tuesday that the women and children are at serious risk, so “let’s hope we can save them.”

Ambrose added that they “are still Canadian.”

Immigration lawyer Andrew Carvajal confirmed the children are entitled to Canadian citizenship and the women could legally return to Canada.

Arif Virani, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, said Tuesday that the government is “actively fighting against radicalization on every front.”

A day earlier, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the Liberals will be opening a planned national counter-radicalization office “as rapidly as we can.”

The news on the five Canadian women came from a University of Waterloo study on foreign fighters who have fled to Syria and Iraq.

The women travelled separately over the past two years, appear to have gone on their own accord, and left their families in Canada devastated, according to researcher Amarnath Amarasingam.

Amarasingam said the women -- who he agreed to make anonymous -- are between the ages of 19 and 22, and are from British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec.

With reports from CTV National News Reporter Katie Simpson