| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan-Pak-India |
| Quake orphans âadoptedâ for jihad |
| 2005-11-13 |
| CHILDREN orphaned by the Kashmir earthquake are being âadoptedâ by terrorist groups that hope to train them to fight in the jihad, or holy war, writes Dean Nelson. Pakistanâs leading human rights organisation, the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust, said jihadi groups fighting the Indian government were taking orphans off the streets and putting them in training camps. The organisation said it also had evidence that sympathetic government officials were passing children on to the jihadis to be looked after. The popularity of the Islamic militants has risen sharply since the earthquake struck on October 8, killing more than 87,000 people. The militants were among the first to arrive with aid at some of the worst affected villages. Their organisation and ability to commandeer lifting equipment and tents have generated significant new support. But according to human rights campaigners they are using their new popularity to smuggle weapons and recruit the young and vulnerable. âWe have heard from very reliable sources and seen with our own eyes that orphaned and lost children are being taken by jihadi organisations in northern Pakistan to be trained,â said Fahad Burney, of the trust. Jamaat-ud Dawa, one of the largest jihadi groups in Pakistan, has called openly for orphans to be handed over for an âIslamic educationâ. Pakistan moved quickly following the quake to ban adoptions after aid agencies warned of child trafficking. Another hazard facing children is pneumonia, which is taking its toll among the 750,000 survivors living in tent camps. Action Against Hunger said it was now seeing one or two cases every day, and was aware of some children dying from the illness. |
| Posted by:john |
| #12 What you will get if the quake orphans are adopted by jihadi outfits is one massive group of people with reactive attachment disorder. That is, in the atmosphere without normal nuturing, like some of those ex-Soviet Bloc orphanages, you will make a whole crop of people that will be incapable of empathy, like normal people. They will be always broken people, incapable of changing, and are virtually condemned to death. The only way out of this hellhole that we find ourselves in, w/r/t Pak and Kashmir is to cut out the Jihadi financing, and that gets back to the Saudis. It always comes back to Saudi and Iran, because that is where the money comes from for this insanity. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2005-11-13 23:12 |
| #11 PR, Edward? I'm not concerned with PR. I just don't want to see dead or brutalized children, and I don't want our soldiers to face the guilt after they have to fight children. And, the way they trained the children in Sierra Leone was extremely horrific. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2005-11-13 23:06 |
| #10 Sounds like the Ultimate slavery to me. The fact that Islam is so accepting of this without any sort of outcry just shows how sick that religion - and I mean mainstream Islam - really is. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-11-13 22:55 |
| #9 I guess that is the end of that entire region. |
| Posted by: newc 2005-11-13 20:45 |
| #8 Thanks, Zenster, but I meant this: Remember the fearsome secret police in Romania that were orphans, brought up with a "the state is mother, the state is father" attitude? And Eric Jablow has it right; let's never forget shooters' ability to get lucky... and let's never forget that a child with an AK-47 means good PR for the other side. |
| Posted by: Edward Yee 2005-11-13 20:04 |
| #7 One especially cruel aspect of the Romanian orphanages is that they followed a discredited theory that occasional injections of blood would improve their vigor. It didn't; they reused their syringes, and so 2,300 Romanian orphans developed AIDS. Don't be so blithe about the danger represented by child soldiers, moose. many of the worst of the killers in Sierra Leone were children. They were brutalized and brainwashed, and they were deadly to the civilians they came across. I would prefer that our soldiers not be forced to fight children. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2005-11-13 19:51 |
| #6 Edward, the Romanian "orphanages" were nothing short of state sponsored concentration camps for infants and children unfortunate enough to lose their parents or be abandoned by them. Ceausescu was a miniature Stalin whose inhumanity knew no compass. Would that he could have died half as slowly as so many of those innocent young inmates did. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-11-13 18:45 |
| #5 Otherwise they become mercenaries in the literal sense of the word? And no, I don't know re: Romania. |
| Posted by: Edward Yee 2005-11-13 18:17 |
| #4 I sure hope you're right, moose. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-11-13 17:19 |
| #3 The problem with children raised to be killers is that they are usually worthless. Remember the fearsome secret police in Romania that were orphans, brought up with a "the state is mother, the state is father" attitude? When Romania fell, they just crawled off. The bottom line is that kids like that know what they are doing is twisted. It ain't natural, and they know that nobody gives a damn about them. This neither breeds loyalty or effectiveness. Certainly, they will parrot back what they are taught, but that means little. By the time they are old enough to be used, they won't want to be used. Their lives are for shit, and they know it. Their dreams are just to be normal somehow. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-11-13 17:04 |
| #2 Quake orphans âadoptedâ for jihad [brutal @sshole] If that's the only alternative, they're better off dead. [/ba] |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-11-13 15:46 |
| #1 The popularity of the Islamic militants has risen sharply since the earthquake struck on October 8, killing more than 87,000 people. The jihadi propagandist who told me this seemed very credible. |
| Posted by: ryuge 2005-11-13 15:29 |