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| Afghanistan |
| Taliban bribe orphans to plant bombs |
| 2013-07-22 |
| [Bangla Daily Star] Taliban Death Eaters in Afghanistan are bribing starving children as young as eight years old to plant deadly roadside booby traps, be decoys in ambushes and even act as jacket wallahs. Despite the Islamic fundamentalists' claim they have no children in their ranks, faceless myrmidons have been actively recruiting orphaned and homeless young boys and training them to use guns, IEDs and boom jackets. In return, they ply the desperate youngsters with sweets and chocolate, an investigation for Channel 4′s Dispatches programme has learned. Afghan orphan Neaz told how he was just eight when he was promised a handful of coins by Taliban fighters to convert him to their cause. The boy had been tending his father's flock of sheep when coalition forces bombed his village. "The Taliban were hiding in our house when a helicopter came and bombed us," he said. "My father was hit in his heart and his head, he was torn apart. My mother was hit in the chest and died. I have no one," he added. Taliban bribe orphans to plant bombsIn the immediate aftermath of the raid, Neaz was kidnapped by Taliban leaders and taken to a nearby town and shown how to use guns and make IEDs. They plied him with sweets and he was initially delighted when they said they planned to bring him an extra-special gift -- a boom jacket packed with bullets and grenades. "They made me try it on. The grenades went all around my body and then they offered me the coins [50 Afghanis -- about 60p]," he said. "They told me to blow myself up at a checkpoint. I asked what I'd do with the money if I had to blow myself up. But they kept encouraging me, telling me that if I did it I would go to heaven." He finally escaped and walked nine miles to turn himself in at a cop shoppe. Now aged ten, Neaz lives in an orphanage in Lashkar Gah. Film-maker Najibullah Quraishi said: "Thousands of children are being recruited and taught to make bombs or become suicide bombers. It is common for 13-year-olds to carry guns." Najibullah was given unprecedented access to a £500,000 British-built prison in Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... , where the cells each hold 20 boys. |
| Posted by:Fred |