Islamabad: Pakistani teenagers forced to
become suicide bombers by Taliban have narrated harrowing
tales of their ordeal they had to undergo including threats
that their families would be wiped off if they refused to do
obey the militants.
The boys who were presented before newsmen were told
that to take part in jihad was their religious duty and that
the security forces and authorities were their enemies as they
were infidels.
"The gunmen took me to the Fazal Banda camp where
militants were training a large number of boys. They told us
that security personnel were infidels and we should wage jihad
against them. If our own families stopped us from joining
jihad, we should target them as well," one of the boys said.
Militants took us by force from our villages to
training camps in different parts of Matta in NWFP where they
found large number of other boys also being trained as suicide
bombers. The boys said at least 250 youngsters, most of them
in their teens, were being trained for terrorist acts.
Another boy said he was in his village when some men
sought his help to load luggage on a vehicle. "When I went to
help them, some masked men bundled me into the vehicle and
drove away," he was quoted as saying by Dawn.
"They put a mask on my face and removed it at a
training camp in Chuparyal," he said adding that as many as
150 boys were getting physical training in the camp.
Bureau Report