When the belt was completely removed, the boy was apprehended by security officers. The officers believed the boy was about to carry a bomb attack.
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Iraqi security forces detain a boy after removing a suicide vest from him in Kirkuk, Iraq, August 21, 2016. Image credit: Ako Rasheed/ Reuters.
Kirkuk intelligence official Chato Fadhil Humadi said the boy in the latest incident “claimed during interrogation that he had been kidnapped by masked men who put the explosives on him and sent him to the area”.
An Iraqi security official confirmed to DPA that a suicide bombing had been prevented in Kirkuk on Sunday and that an attack on Shi’ites in the area had injured three people.
Brooke Goldstein, a human rights attorney, author and filmmaker in an interview explains that groups like Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Islamic Jihad and Hamas are promoting the concept of “martyrdom” to school children and recruiting them as suicide bombers.
“He was captured before he reached his destination, which was a Shia mosque”, Najmaldin Karim, the governor of Kirkuk Governorate, told CNN.
He said the boy was about to carry bomb attack on behalf of IS at a Shia place of worship in Kirkuk, an ethnically and religiously mixed city that lies 240 kilometres north of Baghdad.
The boy, who police have said was 12 or 13, cried as he was stopped by police in Kirkuk, Iraq, less than 24 hours after another child bomber killed 51 people at a wedding party. More than 20 of the victims were children under 14, a Turkish official said Monday.
Children are increasingly being used by terrorist groups across the world.
“The data unambiguously suggests that the so-called Islamic State’s mobilization of children and youth for military purposes is accelerating”, the report claimed.
The incident came at a tense time: Kirkuk was hit by two suicide bombers on Sunday, Kurdistan24 reported.
Karim said the terrorist organization “trained and brainwashed” the boy. While six children died in IS suicide attacks in January 2015, 11 died in January 2016. If they are shown reluctant, they are threatened to be beaten or executed. In some instances, young boys are forced to witness ISIS militants shoot fellow recruits if they stop participating in drills. The younger citizens have been stolen from families and indoctrinated to their cause.
Researchers estimated around 1,500 child soldiers are training and fighting in the terror group’s ranks.
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A suspected teenage suicide bomber also struck neighboring Turkey on Saturday, hitting a packed wedding ceremony in the town of Gaziantep. But other funerals would have to wait because numerous victims were blown to pieces and DNA forensics tests would be needed to identify them, security sources said.
