( CNN ) -- Somalia 's Al-Shabaab has brushed aside accusations from Human Rights Watch that the Islamist militia recruits child soldiers , saying that Islam considers people to be adults from the age of 15 . `` The allegations from Human Rights Watch say that Al-Shabaab recruits young children at the age of 14 , 15 and 17 as soldiers . In Islam , a person becomes adult at the age of 15 so he or she must do what all other adults have to do , '' said Abu Musab , the group 's military spokesman . ''If the territories of the Muslims are attacked , it is incumbent on the women and children to take up arms to fight the enemies , so we do n't care what Human Rights Watch says , '' Abu Musab said , speaking to Alfurqan radio , which supports the group . Islamic scholars consider a boy becomes a man at 15 , or even younger if signs of puberty appear before then . Human Rights Watch said this week that children as young as 10 increasingly face horrific abuse in war-torn Somalia as Al-Shabaab targets them to replenish its diminishing ranks of fighters . The Somali insurgent group 's recruitment of child soldiers is not new , but the report said the scale of child abductions over the past two years is like nothing documented in the past . Shocking patterns have also emerged of children serving as human shields on the battlefields , according to the Human Rights Watch report released Tuesday . `` We 're beginning to see more and more instances where children are essentially being used as cannon fodder , '' Tirana Hassan of Human Rights Watch told CNN . The head of the Somali national army , Gen. Abdulkadir Ali Diini , said Wednesday the government does its best not to recruit children as soldiers . The government has discharged children who are mistakenly recruited , he told journalists in Mogadishu . Human Rights Watch charged in its report that Al-Shabaab fighters abduct young girls and boys from their homes or schools , in some cases taking entire classes . Children can be sent out to recruit other children , according to the organization . One survivor told Human Rights Watch a group of kids asked him to play football at a nearby field . When he arrived , he and others were gathered up and sent to training camps , the survivor told Human Rights Watch . The camps are places where children live in fear , said Hassan , an emergencies researcher for the international human rights group . `` They see injured and dead fighters , many of them children , coming back from the battlefield , '' Hassan added . Recruits are taught to use weapons and to throw hand grenades and are subjected to a myriad of abuses , including rape , assault and forced marriages , according to Hassan . Dozens of recruits , mostly ages 14 to 17 , are driven by truckloads to the front line , where they are told to jump out -- only to be mowed down by gunfire while Al-Shabaab fighters launch rockets from behind , according to Hassan . A 15-year-old boy recruited by Al-Shabaab from his school in Mogadishu in 2010 told Human Rights Watch that `` out of all my classmates -- about 100 boys -- only two of us escaped , the rest were killed . '' `` The children were cleaned off . The children all died and the bigger soldiers ran away , '' the youth told Human Rights Watch . Human Rights Watch also criticized Somalia 's transitional government for not ending its use of child soldiers . `` Al-Shabaab 's horrific abuses do not excuse Somalia 's Transitional Federal Government , '' said Zama Coursen-Neff , the group 's deputy children 's rights director . `` The TFG should live up to its commitments to stop recruiting and using children as soldiers , and punish those who do . '' The 104-page report , released two days ahead of a Somalia conference hosted by the British government , grimly details countless violations against children based on more than 160 interviews conducted over two years with Somali youngsters who escaped from Al-Shabaab forces as well as parents and teachers who fled to Kenya . `` For children of Somalia , nowhere is safe , '' Coursen-Neff said . On Thursday , senior representatives from more than 40 governments will converge on London in a diplomatic push to find political solutions to restore stability in Somalia . CNN 's Jonathan Wald contributed to this report .
Al-Shabaab says Islam considers people to be adults at the age of 15 . The group has been fighting for years against Kenyan forces and other African nations in Somalia. The group says Al-Shabaab is using children as young as 10 as cannon fodder . Somalia 's government denies intentionally recruiting child soldiers .