Taliban recruiting Afghan children as suicide bombers

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Taliban recruiting Afghan children as suicide bombers

By Jawid Omid and Abdul Haleem (Xinhua) 10:39, August 24, 2013

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"It was two years ago when a man gave me a heavy bag tied with wires and connected to a button. The man told me that whenever I see security forces around I should get closer and press the button," Sami Ullah said when interviewed recently by Xinhua in Sarpoza, a prison in Kandahar City in southern Afghanistan, the former stronghold of the Taliban.

Sami is among dozens of Afghan teenagers who have been jailed for involvement in various crimes including robbery and selling drugs. However, Sami's case is different from the other inmates because he was for planning to carry out a suicide bombing on Afghan security forces in Kandahar.

When the child prisoners were asked what crimes they had committed, most of them refused to answer and just looked at the reporters.

But Sami, 16, told Xinhua that he is innocent. He said he was misled by the Taliban, adding that he did not understand what suicide attack means.

Sami was lucky because he was not able to detonate the explosive handed to him by the Taliban. Before he could press the button of the device, he was arrested by security forces.

Sami was originally from neighboring Uruzgan province but his family decided to move to Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province for security reasons. "When I was arrested I was just 14 years old, it is now 23 months that I have been in prison. I hate the Taliban because they deceived me and I could have blown myself had I pressed the button of the device which at that time I did not know was a bomb," Sami said.

Gul Mohammad, 17, is another would-be suicide bomber who was arrested in July last year in Zharay District of Kandahar City, 450 km south of Kabul.

"When I was 15, my father sent me to a Madrasa (religious school) in Helmand province. But my Madrasa teachers decided to send me to a Pakistani Madrasa so that I could improve my education," Muhammad said.

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