Sydney: Militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan have raised the trade price of would-be suicide bombers by up to three times of what they were paying just two years ago.
They are trading the lives of would-be suicide bombers for up to 90,000 dollars, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Two years ago, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik had reported that the price for a child bomber was less than 30,000 dollars.
``The terrorists are using children for their barbarous terrorist activities and a suicide bomber is paid 500,000 to 2.5 million rupees from terrorist outfits,`` Malik said in 2009.
In its editorial, the Kabul newspaper Daily Outlook Afghanistan said that the higher price was a ‘‘terrible trend” with serious consequences for the fight against terrorism.
‘‘The price of a suicide bomber set so high would motivate many others who are disappointed from life due to not having any employment,” the editorial said.
‘‘The capability of terror groups to buy only one suicide bomber for such a high price indicates that there are certain countries that support them financially to continue operating,’‘ it added.
Afghan intelligence arrested a Pakistani man in eastern Afghanistan at the weekend, days before he was to carry out his mission to assassinate an army commander.
Sher Hassan told authorities he was sold by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to the Haqqani network, but was arrested before he could kill the Afghan commander Azizulluh, whose rank and station have not been revealed.
“The detained man added that a commander under Hakimullah Mehsud sells suicide bombers at six to eight million Pakistani rupees [$65,000 to $87,000], to the Haqqani network for suicide missions,” Afghanistan`s National Directorate of Security said in a statement.
ANI
