Terrorists
Continue Exploiting Children for Suicide Attacks
by Hany Ghoraba
Special to IPT News
April 25, 2019
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(Image from YouTube
video) Hizballah trains children to attack a mock Israeli outpost.
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Time has proven that there is no action that is too base or vile for
jihadists and Islamist groups worldwide to attain their goals, and that
includes using children in suicide
terrorist operations against their enemies.
A 2017 UNICEF report says that 117 children In Nigeria, Chad,
Cameroon and Niger were fighting among Boko Haram terrorists after being
kidnapped and trained by the group. In 2017, children carried out 27 Boko
Haram attacks. In Nigeria, Boko Haram went as far as using a 10-year-old
girl to carry out a 2016 New Year's Eve suicide bombing. The
girl approached a crowd gathering to buy noodles, but blew herself up too
soon, limiting the casualties to one injured person.
The latest example came in an April 9 Egypt suicide bombing in the north Sinai town of Sheikh
Zuweid. Seven people were killed, including four police officers and a
6-year-old boy. The terrorist was a 15-year-old boy who targeted a busy
marketplace. ISIS affiliate Ansar Beit Al Maqdes took credit for the attack.
The Egyptian army has targeted Ansar Beit Al Maqdes, forcing the group to tap
children, who can more easily pass through security checkpoints, for its
attacks. ISIS Mufti Abu Said Al Gizrawi issued a fatwa allowing the use of
children in suicide bombings, followed by a published
book by Abu Hassan Al Kahtani sanctioning the use of women and children in
suicide operations. Al Kahtani was killed in Syria in 2015.
According to retired General Mohsen Hefzy, a former Egyptian national
security official, children and teenagers are recruited through a two-step process called
"Jihadist Discipline."In the first stage, children are
brainwashed and convinced to fight the enemies of God. They then are
trained to use explosives and emotionally prepared execute suicide
bombings.
Step two is called "Sharia' Legitimizing" and includes
labeling security officers as "heretics and infidels" to cast
killing them as justified and a path to heaven.
The process is well established among jihadists across the world. For
years, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has exploited children politically to deliver messages
during their demonstrations or sit-ins such as the Rabaa armed encampment
in 2013. The messages included dressing the children in white shrouds
as a symbol of their willingness to die. Moreover, the group leaders direct
children to shout slogans like, "I am ready to die." Some of
these children were handed banners saying, "My father the martyr,
after you were gone I will not give up."
The Muslim Brotherhood offshoot Hamas is notorious for using children in
its demonstrations and operations. It organizes military training camps for high school students. Hamas calls
children's brigades "Talaa' Al Tahrir," or the "The
Independence Brigades." Children younger than 15 are trained in
jihadist activities targeting Israel and other perceived enemies. They are
used as human shields and to fight or carry out terrorist attacks.
The Hamas Al Qassam Brigades organize
week-long boot camps that have included more than 30,000 children in the
Gaza Strip. Training includes kidnapping and attacks on targets.
"I want to learn and observe how Al Qassam kill the Jews and
perform their martyr operations," a child named Mohamed Al Bitar told Agence France Presse in 2016. Hamas uses Gaza mosques
to recruit children for its training camp. In 2014, the Al Aqsa Martyr
Brigades sent a 14-year-old boy to blow
himself up at an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank, but he was
stopped at the last moment
But ISIS has exploited children in more shocking ways. Video footage shows ISIS taught children as young as 4 how to behead
people or fire a gun to kill captured enemies. According to the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights, in 2015 alone ISIS recruited
about 1,100 children in Syria. They were all trained like adult suicide soldiers and some were paid
wages up to $400 per month. Similarly, ISIS captured more than 900 children
in Iraq that year and forced them into military training and suicide
missions in Mosul. Egypt's Dar Al Ifta, a state religious institute, reported
that in 2018, 12 percent of ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq were children.
In 2014, an ISIS father forced his own 10-year-old daughter to wear a bomb vest
and detonate herself in front of a Damascus police station.
In Lebanon, Hizballah has been training children for military operations
for decades. An Associated Press video from 2015 showed
children as young as 9 being trained under the supervision of a group
leader. Hizballah even prints its own terrorist propaganda for kids. The
Lebanese Amal movement organizes "Little Guest" courses to train
to show children what they labeled as "young martyrs."
Child soldiers still represent a clear and present danger. Jonathan
Geffroy, a former ISIS jihadist from France who was captured in Syria in
2017, confessed to French DSGI internal intelligence, and told a French
official that ISIS plans to use its trained children to launch terrorist attacks in Europe.
"I know that future external operations will be carried out by
children who grew up in the area and who, after adolescence, will be sent
to the West, to Europe, to carry out suicide missions," German
Intelligence Chief Hans-Georg Maasen warned about returning ISIS children a year ago,
describing them as "living time bombs." In Germany, a
12-year-old's attempt to bomb a Christmas market in 2014 was foiled
when someone spotted a bag containing explosives.
The number of child soldiers across the world jumped 159 percent in the
past five years, the London-based Child Soldiers International reported in February. With many children returning from ISIS-controlled territory, the threat
posed will be a lasting one. A bullet fired or a bomb detonated by a child
is as effective as those by adults.
Hany
Ghoraba is an Egyptian writer, political and counter-terrorism
analyst at Al Ahram Weekly, author of Egypt's
Arab Spring: The Long and Winding Road to Democracy and a
regular contributor to the BBC.
Related Topics: Hany
Ghoraba, suicide
bombers, children
in terrorist attacks, Sheikh
Zuweid attack, Boko
Haram, ISIS,
Ansar
Beit Al Maqdes, fatwas,
Abu
Said Al Gizrawi, Abu
Hassan Al Kahtani, Mohsen
Hefzy, indoctrination,
Hamas,
Al
Qassam Brigades, Hizballah,
Jonathan
Geffroy
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