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Suicide Bombers For Hire

Teen trained to be suicide bomber feels tricked - CNN.com

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Story Highlights

* Teen is serving at least 5 years for plot to carry out suicide bombing

* He says Muslim radicals at school duped him into becoming a would-be bomber

* The thing he misses most about home is his mom and dad: "I miss my parents"

* Detention facility is teaching jailed children a moderate interpretation of Islam

By Atia Abawi
CNN

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A 14-year-old who was trained to kill by radicals in the tribal regions of Pakistan now sits in a crowded classroom at a detention facility in Kabul. His only wish is to see his parents again.

"I miss my parents, my mom and dad," Shakirullah says in soft tones. Like others in tribal regions, he goes by one name.

Shakirullah is already a convicted terrorist for planning to carry out a suicide bombing. He says Muslim radicals lied and tricked him into becoming a would-be bomber. "I have been detained for trying to commit a suicide attack," he says.

He says his recruiters told him it was his mission as a Muslim to kill British and American soldiers because they were killing Muslims. Watch teen say recruiters "cheated me" »

They told him that once he blew himself up he wouldn't die because God would save him for being a true Muslim.

Asked what he now thinks of Americans and Westerners, Shakirullah is calm, but quick in his response.

"I don't know. God knows what type of people they are, whether they are good or bad. I don't know them," he says.

Shakirullah now passes his hours in a cell block at a juvenile detention facility in Kabul. He is serving at least five years in detention. He is to be transferred to an adult prison in a couple of years, authorities say.

He hasn't heard from his family in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. He tried to send them a letter through the International Committee of the Red Cross but is not sure it reached them.

"I don't know what they are thinking. They have no news of me," he says.

On this day, Shakirullah attends a rehabilitation class, easily lost in the crowd of boys with shaved heads. All of the children are convicted for various crimes, including theft, fighting and even murder.

Three boys like Shakirullah are here, all guilty of planning to kill themselves and others after being recruited by terrorist groups.

With the increased violence in Afghanistan, international observers say they have seen more and more children being recruited by armed groups and national forces. The Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan with its strict Islamic rule from 1996 to 2001, has regrouped and launched a fierce insurgency.

"As you see in many places in the world, children are being used in armed conflict. They've been recruited as child soldiers; they've been recruited as armed groups. And the phenomena is now impacting, again, Afghanistan," says Catherine Mbengue, the UNICEF representative in Afghanistan. Watch one boy's struggle begging for food on streets »

Inside the detention center, Shakirullah walks up to his cell, his sandals sliding across the tile floor.

The cell block is empty and has metal bunk beds lined across the wall and a television set, ready for the times they have electricity. Shakirullah shares this space with 10 other boys. He sits in the center of the room with a blanket draped around him.

He barely makes eye contact and looks away as soon as he does. He is shy, but forthright in his words. "I didn't want to do it but he forced me to go," he says of his recruiter.

Rubbing his face with his hand, he says he now spends his time dreaming of his life back home in rural Pakistan. His eyes begin to water and his voice becomes softer when he talks about missing his mother.

Asked what he misses most about her, he says simply, "A mother is a mother."

His was a life of farming and tranquility in Pakistan, he says. It was also a life that took a drastic turn when his father decided to send Shakirullah for studies at a madrassa.

He says his dad wanted him to learn more about Islam and the Quran, something he could not do himself. He says his father didn't know radicals ran the school.

In the madrassa, Shakirullah learned to recite the Quran in Arabic, not his native language. He relied solely on the fanatical interpretations the mullahs were giving him.

"When I finished reciting the Quran, a mullah then came to me and told me, 'Now that you have finished the Quran, you need to go and commit a suicide attack.' That I should go to Afghanistan to commit a suicide attack," he says.

The teenager wasn't given the chance to say goodbye to his parents or siblings when he was driven to the Pakistan-Afghan border and handed over to strangers.

He says he was taken to the southeastern province of Khost, a hotbed for terrorist activity in Afghanistan. Suicide attacks have risen in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion to topple the Taliban began in late 2001, after the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Shakirullah says that before the police arrested him, he was learning how to drive a car but that he was not sure how he was supposed to carry out his attack.

Khost is the province where a suicide car bomb went off near a voter registration site this past Sunday, killing 16 people, 14 of whom were children.

At the juvenile detention facility, Shakirullah and the others are now being taught a different interpretation of Islam.

"The teachers educate them on Islam, and explain to them that the acts that they were doing is not right for them and for others," says Mir Fayaz ah-Din, who works and lives with the boys at the facility, mentoring them and helping them in their rehabilitation.

"The way you want to kill yourself and someone else -- it in itself is a big offense in Islam."

Shakirullah now says of his recruiters, "They cheated me."
 
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Press TV - ISI prevents discovery of Taliban base

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:15:44 GMT




Pakistani intelligence has prevented a suicide bomber, arrested before carrying out an attack, from identifying a connected Taliban base.

The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has taken 17-year old Shakiel al-La'l out of police arrest and transferred him to the city of Peshawar by helicopter to keep him from identifying the religious school where he spent the night prior to the planned attack, Radio Pashto reported on Sunday.

According to the report, people who had gathered for prayer at the Hazrat-e-Ali (Pbuh) Mosque in the Pakistani city of Dera Ismail Khan got suspicious of Shakiel al-La'l and arrested him before he was able to carry out the bombing.

Radio Pashto said Shakiel al-La'l's home-town is Darra Adam Khel, another city in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

After his arrest, the schoolboy told the police that he was recruited by Taliban militants and transferred to the tribal region of Orakzai where he trained for suicide attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan (Sep. 2 - Sep. 30.)

He also said that a few days ago, a man called 'Abdullah' had brought him to Dera Ismail Khan by bus so that he could carry out the Mosque bombing.

Shakiel says on the day of the attack, he decided not to set off the bomb, after entering the mosque and seeing the crowded hall filled with 'people and small children'.

"I asked myself why I should kill these people while they are praying. It was then that I had a feeling of remorse," Shakiel told the police according to Radio Pashto.

The detained teen added that, although he could, he did not detonate the explosive belt he was wearing around his waist, or use a gun he was given, when two men grabbed him from behind.

During the police interrogation, Shakiel said that he could identify the religious school where he spent the days before his arrest, despite being unfamiliar with the city.

He added that if taken there during daytime, he would recognize the school, because it was close to a farmyard.

MJ/DT
 
2 comments:
first article: there are many children [infact quite a number of adults too] that dont know the difference between right and wrong and the taliban takes advantage over that
so basically the right education can save them
second article:
stop posting bullsh!t about the isi, thats all
 
second article:
stop posting bullsh!t about the isi, thats all
But that is an Iranian website - a site whose news cannot be published unless it recieves that apporval of Iranian censors actig on the guidelins set by its Religious leaders who are held at a high pedestal in the Muslim community

By terming the article as BS, you are casting asperations on the credibility and importance of the Ayatollah - not something that would make the Iranians any closer to Pakistan
 
But that is an Iranian website - a site whose news cannot be published unless it recieves that apporval of Iranian censors actig on the guidelins set by its Religious leaders who are held at a high pedestal in the Muslim community

By terming the article as BS, you are casting asperations on the credibility and importance of the Ayatollah - not something that would make the Iranians any closer to Pakistan

so what if its from an iranian site
doesnt make it the truth does it??
 
Sad to see this kind of thing. Young people are used for these things everywhere, ignorance combinded with a lack of self confidence can do wonders for those behind such things.
 
Maoists forcibly recruiting child soldiers in Chhattisgarh`


Raipur, May 07: Maoist guerrillas are forcibly recruiting minors in their ranks as child soldiers in large forested areas of Chhattisgarh according to police.

`Rebels are conducting a massive drive for child soldiers in their forested hideouts in Chhattisgarh`s Bastar region, which is close to Andhra Pradesh,` Inspector General Girdhari Nayak of the state`s anti-Maoist operation said on Tuesday.

`It`s a forced recruitment. Rebels are carrying away children without their parents` consent and are training them to handle even sophisticated weapons and use them for attacks on civilians and police installations,` the officer said.

`We have reports that insurgents have been forcibly taking away tribal boys and girls from schools in poverty-stricken hamlets of the Bastar region,` he added.

For about two decades, rebels have been running a parallel government in a 40,000 sq km area in Bastar, particularly in Bijapur and Dantewada districts.

Police officials in Dantewada and Bijapur say the present drive of recruitment of minors is for a child unit - Krantikari Adivasi Balak Sangh - a banned frontal organisation of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) in Chhattisgarh.

According to them, the rebels are targeting children in the age group of 12-18 years and are focussing on school dropouts.

The government has set up 23 make-shift relief camps in Bijapur and Dantewada where about 50,000 people, mostly tribals, are living following threats from the Maoists since June 2005 when the anti-Maoist civilian resistance movement Salwa Judum was launched. The movement was later backed by the government.

In 2007, 436 people, including 200 policemen, died in Maoist violence while the toll was 458 in 2006. The majority of deaths were reported from Bijapur and Dantewada districts.

Bureau Report `Maoists forcibly recruiting child soldiers in Chhattisgarh`
 
Maoists demolish school buildings in Chhattisgarh



Saturday, 17 May 2008

Chhattisgarh, May 17: Maoist guerrillas have demolished at least seven school buildings in Chhattisgarh's tribal dominated areas in the last three days, a police official said Saturday.'The banned Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) is now on a school building demolition spree in Dantewada district with at least seven schools being extensively damaged since Thursday,' Girdhari Nayak, inspector general (Maoist operation), told IANS.

Dozens of rebels raided government schools in Kuakonda block in Dantewada, some 520 km south of capital Raipur, Thursday night. They damaged five buildings with sharp edged weapons, but they did not use any explosives.

The police claimed that the insurgents Friday night targeted two boarding schools run by the tribal department.

http://www.siasat.com/english/index....Crime/Accident
 
It seems that shining hindustan is also not free from this problem of recruiting children and young people for violence and schools are not only burnt in Swat but also extensively in hindustan.
 

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