The suicide bomber, his faced cloaked in black, solemnly approaches a line of comrades, hugging each one in turn. Wailing jihadi chants fill the air.
The bomber turns and makes for his target. A sentry tries to stop him but he tugs the cord. Boom! Smoke fills the air and bodies go flying. As the dust settles, a crowd rushes forward to examine the dead — some of whom seem to be struggling not to giggle.
This amateur video of Pashtun children enacting a suicide bombing has circulated on the internet in Pakistan in recent days, highlighting the disturbing psychological impact of Taliban violence on a generation.
The unsettling 84-second clip has divided opinions, with some amused by the smiling child actors and fake explosions; others are appalled by evidence that suicide bombers have become playground heroes of sorts.
“It’s horrifying and alarming. These children have become fascinated by bombers rather than condemning them,” said Salma Jafar of Save the Children UK in Pakistan. “If they glamorise violence now, they can become part of it later in life.”
Playful drama
The origins of the home-made video, which first surfaced about a week ago, are unknown. Ahsan Masood, a Pashtun from Waziristan who posted it on Facebook, said he believed it had been filmed in Khost, Afghanistan. A sobering reality lies behind the playful drama. Children are both perpetrators and victims in the decade-old Taliban-led conflict that has destabilised both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
A shocking 2007 video showed a young knife-wielding boy beheading an accused American spy in Balochistan province in western Pakistan. In Swat and Waziristan, Taliban commanders have groomed hundreds of radicalised teen bombers in suicide schools. And during the Red Mosque crisis in Islamabad in 2007, militant mothers dressed up their infant children in bomber outfits.
More often, however, Pashtun children have been on the receiving end of violence. Since early December, bombs in Peshawar have hit two school buses and a school entrance, killing at least four children — one six years old — and wounding scores. Pakistan military offensives against the Taliban have pounded rural villages, killing hundreds of civilians.
Blame for child extremism often falls on madrasa religious schools run by hardline clerics and funded by donors in the Gulf states. But in Pakistan the fault also lies with the underfunded state school system, widely considered to be in a state of chronic disrepair.
With little formal teaching, children turn to role-playing games as a way of dealing with the traumas around them. Toy guns are popular presents; instead of cops and robbers, children often pretend to play militants and their victims.
Pakistani media commentator Fasi Zaka called the latest suicide bomber clip “the most amazing amateur video I’ve ever seen”. He said: “It’s disturbing but also sophisticated and creative — a one-camera shot that captures it all. They are reproducing what they see in their lives around them.” But play-acting can also play a positive role.
In Swat, where the army largely vanquished the Taliban in a 2009 operation, schools have mounted dramas that depict the defeat of the militant group and the return of normality. – Guardian News & Media 2011