In 2007 the Taliban told a 6-year-old street child to go “spray flowers” on the Americans.
He was carrying a bomb.
Afghan boy Juma Gul ,6, right, has lunch with his brother Dad Gul at a joint U.S.-Afghan military command center in Andar district of Ghazni province, west of Kabul, Afghanistan on Saturday, June 23, 2007. The story of Juma Gul, who says he thwarted an effort by Taliban militants to trick him into carrying out a suicide bombing against U.S. troops provoked tears and anger at a weekend meeting of tribal leaders. Though the Taliban dismissed the story as propaganda, at a time when U.S. and NATO forces are under increasing criticism over civilian casualties, both Afghan tribal elders and U.S. military officers said they were convinced by his dramatic account. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)
In 2009 the Taliban started buying up children for suicide bombings.
Last week two 10 year-old would-be suicide bombers were arrested in Afghanistan.
This weekend the Afghan govermnent rescued 41 children from becoming suicide bombers today as they were about to be smuggled across the mountains into Pakistan.
News 24 reported, via Lucianne:
The Afghan government said on Monday that police had rescued 41 children from becoming suicide bombers as they were about to be smuggled across the mountains into Pakistan.
Interior ministry spokesperson Sediq Sediqqi told a news conference that the children aged six to 11 had been released on February 15 from the clutches of four insurgents in eastern Kunar province.
He told AFP their families “were fooled by terrorists”, who promised to send them to seminaries in Pakistan where they would be “brainwashed” and “prepared for suicide bombings against Afghan and international troops in Afghanistan”.
Police arrested the four suspects and the children were returned to their families, the spokesperson said.
The Afghan government has accused madrassas in Pakistan of teaching violent extremism and sponsoring Islamist violence, a legacy of Afghanistan’s 1979-89 US and Pakistani-sponsored mujahideen uprising against Soviet troops.
On February 12, Afghan authorities announced the arrest of two 10-year-old would-be suicide bombers allegedly planning to attack Afghan and international forces in the southern province of Kandahar, the Taliban’s birthplace.
Related… In Pakistan the children play suicide bomber as a game.
