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Video shows Ramadi children playing with remains of US soldiers
The children climb down into the crater left by an explosion and start picking up scraps of twisted metal. "Allah is great!" they shout before the camera hones in to show what one boy is holding: torn fabric, the colour of the camouflage fatigues worn by US troops. The next scene shows the same children holding aloft a human leg, shreds of the same camouflage fabric hang from it and the foot is clad in a military-style boot. The children trample the leg and kick it around in the dust."Today the Americans came to these parts and the buried bomb blew up their Hummer vehicle," says a teenage boy, adding, "if Allah wants it, the mujahadeen will win." This grisly footage, purportedly shot in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, has appeared in the form of a three-minute video on the Internet. It marks the latest attempt by Jihadist militants to exploit children for propaganda purposes. Last week Adnkronos International (AKI) obtained a copy of another video shot in Ramadi. On that occasion the action shown took place in the apparently placid setting of a school classroom. Still, sinister references to the carnage that blights Iraq on a daily basis soon became evident. The pupils were being taught to sing Jihad songs by hooded militants who rewarded their efforts with pens, rulers and erasers. The video concluded with images of two small boys, clad in black tunics and wearing black ski masks and one holding a pistol in his tiny hand. Unlike the professionally shot video of the schoolchildren posted on the Internet by the Ansar al-Sunna group, part of the terror galaxy of al-Qaeda linked Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the latest crudely filmed footage bears no indication on who its authors might be. But the sudden appearance of children protagonists in the videos, indicates that the Jihadist militant groups have no intention of sparing the young from the horrors of the fighting. It also shows the extent of the militants' control in the restive al-Anbar province, were Ramadi is located. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-03-16 |
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