Turkish officials said at least 22 of the victims in the wedding party attack in the southeastern city of Gaziantep were under the age of 14.
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The video footage shows Iraqi officials taking off the boy’s clothes and trying to remove his suicide vest. This is why women and children have become perpetrators lately during terrorist attacks. When people realize that children, who are supposed to be innocent and good, are capable of committing suicide or attacking others to restate extremist groups’ cause, society might interpret such actions as hopelessness.
Researchers and officials say Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other militants are now increasingly using the same tactics, perhaps to build depleted ranks, preserve adult fighters or simply catch security forces off guard.
“Child recruitment across the region is increasing”, said Unicef regional spokesman Juliette Touma.
The observatory said IS had used 18 children as suicide bombers so far that year, most recently in its fight against Kurdish militia in northeastern Syria.
Human Rights Watch has said ISIS and other extremist groups “have specifically recruited children through free schooling campaigns that include weapons training and have given them unsafe tasks, including suicide bombing missions”.
Earlier this year, Quilliam, a UK-based think tank released a detailed report titled “Children of Islamic State”, which reveals how ISIS recruits children and then gives them jihad training by indoctrinating them at school, and sometimes at home too. They are forced to accept the group’s ideology.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban has long used children.
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The incident came at a tense time: Kirkuk was hit by two suicide bombers on Sunday, Kurdistan24 reported. The paper also raised alarm bells over the rising rate of suicide attacks committed by children, who were “brainwashed” by the terrorist group. ISIS has tried to turn some children into militants using martyrdom propaganda in these camps. The deadliest one was last October, when suicide bombers killed more than 100 people at a rally of pro-Kurdish and labour activists in Ankara.
