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Kids 'used as suicide bombers'
27/01/2008 16:46 - (SA)
Baghdad - Al-Qaeda is using children as suicide bombers in Iraq, with at least two attacks in the past week committed by 15-year-olds, a US military commander claimed on Sunday.
"We are not sure whether one of these children even knew he was being used to deliver a bomb," Rear Admiral Gregory Smith told a news conference in Baghdad.
One attack was carried out at a funeral ceremony near Tikrit, executed dictator Saddam Hussein's home town 180km north of Baghdad and the other was at a school in the northern city of Mosul, Smith said.
He gave no details of the two bombings. Iraqi police said 17 people died in a January 21 suicide blast at the funeral ceremony near Tikrit for relatives of an Iraqi police colonel.
"Al-Qaeda in Iraq is trying to brainwash children with hate and death... they seek to create a culture of violence, hate and despair," said Smith.
"(They) are sending 15-year-old boys on suicide missions to spread death and helplessness."
Smith quoted Sheikh Ahmed Abu Reesha, leader of the "Anbar Awakening" that has ended much of al-Qaeda's hold over western Iraq, as saying that the jihadists were using suicide bombers as a last resort.
"When we attack al-Qaeda they flee, hide and come back with new tactics. "The only tactic that is left for them now is to commit suicide," he quoted the sheikh as saying.
Ninety percent of "suicide murders inflicted on Iraqi people are committed by foreign fighters brought in by al-Qaeda in Iraq to spread destruction," Smith said.
- AFP
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