The Sunday Mirror has an article and some video film believed to show boys between the ages of 5 and 13 being trained as Taliban soldiers, one of whom, an 11 year old is later killed.
The pictures come from a video filmed at an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, where Taliban warlords are turning boys as young as FIVE into trained killers. Recorded only weeks ago, it captures a dozen nervous-looking boys in camouflage uniforms with headbands which say: There is no God but Allah.
The boy soldiers stand in line before being handed rifles and taught to fire rocket-propelled grenades.
They live in tents and say prayers before sleeping with weapons lying next to them. When their training is complete the children are filmed walking over the Pakistan-Afghanistan border right into a warzone.
The film shows one boy nodding nervously after he is asked: Are you prepared to die for Allah?
If he is killed, he will not be the first. In one section, the face of an 11-year-old soldier, named as Abdullah al-Rahim, is circled on the screen as he marches away.
Seconds later, images of his body wrapped in a white sheet appear, making him a martyr for al-Qaeda leaders determined to recruit thousands more children.
The footage was obtained by Sunday Mirror investigators after it was posted on an underground al-Qaeda website, which routinely trumpets the death of British soldiers killed by the Taliban.
The seven-minute video was issued by the Islamic Jihad Union, which has training camps in the north Waziristan province in Pakistan.
British commanders in Afghanistan say Taliban fighters increasingly use children as suicide bombers. They are also used as human shields during firefights.
Author and terror expert Neil Doyle said it was one of the most disturbing videos he had seen. He said: It is child abuse of the worst kind and shows the kind of sick tactics al-Qaeda use.
It is a bit hard to evaluate the video because the subtitles are in Russian. I would be interested to know the opinion of one of our Russian speakers. It could be argued that this is only the equivalent of our Cadets or the ATC but it doesn’t feel like it. Cadets don’t handle real weapons and don’t die as a matter of course. I know boys who are, or have been in the British Army cadets – it’s not all fun, everything worthwhile requires a modicum of hard work, but its not sheer terror either. These boys look ill and terrified. Their eyes are the giveaway.
The boys sent to defend Berlin in 1945 were older. The drummer boys at Waterloo were older. John Cornwell was older.