New life for suicide recruits

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan said yesterday it had rescued 20 boys who were among hundreds recruited by the Taleban and brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers at a secret camp.

The boys, some as young as 9, have revealed details of how they were induced to become part of the Taleban's army of jihad inside Pakistan and told their rescuers that more than 1000 children may be undergoing training in the Swat Valley camp.

Their discovery by the Army as troops were conducting a military offensive against the Taleban underscores the organisation's power over poor communities and the lengths Taleban commanders are willing to go to achieve their aims.

The rescued children were held at a training camp in the Charbagh area of the Swat Valley, where their indoctrination programme reportedly lasted more than a month. Some were recovered as the Army was carrying out "search and sweep" operations, while others were handed over to the Army by worried parents.

"When we interrogated the boys, they said that they had been taken hostage by the Taleban by force, or in some cases they were taken to the training camps by their friends," said Major Nasir Khan, a military spokesman.

"They were heavily indoctrinated. When I asked them about what they were told, they said: 'The Pakistan Army is the ally of the Western capitalist world, they are the enemies of Islam. The fight against them is justified, they are apostates, the friends of the infidels'."

Some families had been forced at gunpoint to hand over their children "to fight jihad". Some groups of boys were kidnapped in mysterious circumstances, while others were lured to the Taleban by friends.

One of the 20 boys recovered told Khan that there were "about 1200 other boys" at the training camp. The Army suspects that there were other camps in operation elsewhere in the valley, including the militant stronghold of Piochar.

The boys were shown videos of atrocities being carried out across the Muslim world, from the Palestinian territories to Chechnya and the Middle East. "They were shown these images to develop a hatred of Western countries," said Khan.

The Taleban militants would then gauge their intelligence and physical strength before dividing them into separate categories. The first group was used as local informers who would patrol the streets gathering information. One boy said he was given a pistol and told to monitor troop movements.

As the Army began to strike at the Taleban's communications infrastructure, the militants fell back on simpler methods: boys were posted on street corners and when an Army convoy began to roll in their direction they would send signals to boys further on by mirrors or hand signals.

The more athletic boys were trained as the next generation of Taleban fighters. Those judged to be less intelligent were chosen to be suicide bombers. This group was kept separately and prized for their potential to cause large Army fatalities.

As the Taleban faced mounting losses and began to scatter, the children returned to their homes with their Taleban indoctrination intact. "The militants had told the boys that they had the right even to kill their parents if they stood in their way," said Khan.

A special school is being established in Swat to rehabilitate the children, to re-educate and counsel them, and give them small grants to be able to seek jobs once they have recovered.Independent