Taliban using children as part of ‘Jihad’
* 14-year-old boy recruited by Taliban in Swat recalls recruitment
* Intelligence reports estimate more than 5,000 children trained so far
Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: The Taliban are using children bought from poor families or recruited from madrassas to launch suicide attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, a report said on Wednesday.
Qari Abdullah, a Taliban commander in charge of child recruitment, told Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, writing for the Independent, that children as young as five and six years old were being recruited from poor families.
“The kids want to join us because they like our weapons. If you’re fighting, then God provides you with the means to win. Kids themselves are tools to achieve God’s will. And whatever comes your way, you sacrifice it,” he said.
Describing a Taliban propaganda video, Sharmeen recalled 25 shalwar kameez-clad children appearing in the video.
“They sat cross-legged on the ground rocking back and forth reciting the holy Quran. A white bandana tied across their forehead” inscribed with the Kalmah, she wrote.
She wrote the children had been filmed in an empty compound, adding that three children, armed with automatic guns, sat in one corner and kept watch.
“Their teacher, dressed in brown military fatigues walked around reading aloud from a book titled ‘Justifications for suicide bombing’. He made a list on the white board titled ‘Reasons for killing a spy’,” she added, writing that the text on the screen read “Preparing suicide bombers”.
Sharmeen recalled that in another chilling video, three boys spoke about their desire to become suicide bombers. She writes, “The video introduces Zainullah, who later blows himself up and kills six, Sadique, who blows himself up and kills 22, and Masood who kills 28.” She wrote that the video contained footage of their attacks and in the background a young child sang “if you try and find me after I have died, you will never find my whole body, you will find little pieces”.
Disturbing tale: Hazrat Ali, a 14-year-old boy from a poor farming family in Swat, was recruited by the Taliban from the local Islamic school.
“They first call us to the mosques, and preach to us. Then they take us to a madrassa and they teach us things from the Quran. They teach us to use machine gun, Kalashnikov, rocket launchers, grenades, bombs. They ask us to use them only against the infidels. Then they teach us how to do a suicide attack,” Ali said.
Ali said he longed for the day when his turn would come to be a suicide bomber. “There are thousands of us. The Taliban now have the power to defeat the army,” he added.
There are 80 million children in the country, more than a quarter of whom lived below the poverty line.
High number: According to intelligence estimates, more than 5,000 child suicide bombers between the ages of 10 and 17 have been trained by the Taliban so far. Most of them are dispatched to Afghanistan to target international troops and Afghan security forces, but some are deployed for strikes inside Pakistan. On April 6, a child suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shia mosque in the Chakwal district, killing 26 people and injuring more than 50.
It has also been reported that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud was buying children as young as seven to carry out suicide bombings. The price for a child bomber is between $7,000 and $14,000, an official requesting anonymity said.
The Pakistani government has offered a reward of about $615,300 for information leading to Mehsud’s capture.
