22 de agosto de 2016, 16:06Baghdad, Aug 22 (Prensa Latina) Iraqi police stated today that an 11-old boy was arrested and his explosive belt seized in the vicinity of a Shiite mosque in the city of Kirkuk. These so-called cubs of the caliphate are inducted into ISIS’ campaign of violence through a myriad of grim training practices, with children as young as 8 reconditioned to follow the terror group’s ideology, according to United Nations reports.
Advertisement
According to Brigadier Chato Fadhil Humadi, the boy arrived in Kirkuk a week ago after he was displaced from his hometown, the IS-occupied city of Mosul, by military operations in the area. Less than a day earlier, Turkey was less fortunate: a teenage bomber detonated his suicide vest among dancing guests at a Turkish wedding party, officials say, killing 51 people, almost half of them children themselves.
Palestinian groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have also sought to indoctrinate children with violent anti-Israel ideologies, but have not used children in any attacks.
Children are increasingly being used by terrorist groups across the world.
Authorities continue to piece together information about Saturday’s attack and the identity of the suicide bomber. Among the most deadly attacks was a bombing at a youth soccer game at a stadium south of Baghdad on March 25, 2016. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) alleged that the attack was only thwarted as the mobile phone detonator rigged to the bomb failed to go off. Almost half of those killed were also children, participating in the soccer game or cheering from the stands. It has an army of child soldiers too. Girls, the group says, are at greatest risk of being sold into sexual slavery while boys are often forced into becoming combatants or suicide bombers.
Advertisement
Organizations for children’s rights have reported that in most cases children are not aware of what it is going to be their actual destiny when they are asked to put bombs in their bodies or when they are asked to fight against the enemy. UNICEF said that three quarters of child suicide bombers had been girls. The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, used teenagers as suicide bombers to fight the American occupation in Iraq before he was killed in a USA airstrike in 2006. No one claimed the attack, but Islamic State in the past has targeted Kurdish gatherings to stir ethnic tensions.
