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Monday, June 8, 2009

U.S. reports Al Qaida recruiting teens for attacks

BAGHDAD Ñ The U.S. military reported that Al Qaida has been recruiting teenagers for suicide and other attacks in Iraq.   

Officials said Al Qaida and cells financed by the former regime of President Saddam Hussein were recruiting teenagers as young as 14 to hurl grenades at U.S. and Iraqi forces. They said the teenagers were also being trained to serve as suicide bombers against Shi'ite targets, Middle East Newsline reported.

"To endanger children with acts of terrorism is despicable," U.S. Army Lt. Col Hugh McNeely, the deputy commander of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, said. "But when terrorists actively recruit them to risk their lives for goals that the child probably doesn't even understand is evil. ThereÕs just no other way to say it."


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The focus of the teenage recruitment has been in northern Iraq. The military said at least five teenagers Ñ ages from 14 to 19 Ñ were employed in grenade and suicide attacks in May and June 2009.

Officials said Al Qaida has long used women and children to penetrate U.S. and Iraqi security cordons. But they said the renewed deployment of teenagers was meant to prevent the capture of AQI agents, particularly in the Kirkuk area.

On June 4, a teenage boy was seen throwing a grenade at a combined patrol of Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers in Hawijah, 30 kilometers outside Kirkuk. The military said the grenade failed to detonate, and the boy fled.

"The incident is part of a growing trend of children carrying out attacks on Iraqi security and U.S. forces in the province," the military said in a statement on June 6.

The trend was reported in wake of the arrest at least one 15-year-old after he was alleged to have thrown a grenade toward a U.S.-Iraqi patrol in Hawijah. The teenage boy was also said to have thrown a grenade at another joint patrol on May 26. In both cases, nobody was injured.

Al Qaida was also believed to have used teenagers to drive suicide bombs. In Kirkuk, officials said, a 14-year-old drove a car in a suicide bombing that killed five Iraqi police officers on May 12.

On May 1, a 19-year-old would-be suicide bomber was detained by Iraqi police as he sought to detonate his suicide vest in a Shi'ite mosque. The teenager was said to have been a three-year Al Qaida veteran.

The Iraq Army has already arrested an Al Qaida recruitment cell that focused on youngsters. Officials said four Al Qaida agents were detained on April 14 in Kirkuk on charges of recruiting and training teenagers for suicide missions.



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