A nine-year-old girl who was drugged, abducted and strapped into a suicide vest by militants last week in Pakistan returned home safely to her family last night.
But the scene was darker this week in Afghanistan, where insurgents apparently tricked an eight-year-old girl into carrying a bomb and blew her up near a police checkpost.
Spokespeople for the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban deny involvement in either attack.
Although teenage boys have been used by militia since the anti-Soviet jihad, some regional experts doubted that Taliban leaders would stoop to using young girls. The problem there? Those top leaders are not fully in control of forces on the ground.
“It wouldn’t be the policy of the high command. They wouldn’t want to use young girls,” said Saad Mohammad, the director of the Forum for Area Studies in Peshawar, Pakistan.
“A lot of people take advantage of the name of the Taliban and they have their own scores to settle with some policemen there [or other feuds], so they take the cover of the Taliban.”
Such lack of ground control highlights a pitfall in the Afghan peace process. Even if the United States manages to cut a deal with the Taliban leadership, it’s not certain low-level commanders will fall in line.
Sunday’s attack took place in the Uruzgan province of central Afghanistan. The interior ministry claims that “the enemies of peace and prosperity” gave an eight-year-old girl a bag of explosives, telling her to take it to the police. As she approached a police vehicle, the militants detonated the explosives by remote control. The girl died. But no police were killed or injured.
Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the Taliban were not involved in the incident.
He went on to say that Islamic scholars followed by the Taliban have laid down six conditions for a suicide attacker.
The attacker must:
- inflict casualties or concern in non-Muslim ranks;
- be an adult over 18;
- be trained;
- have a clear target approved by the local shadow governor;
- have studied the attack plans; and
- have the intention of doing it for God.
Historically, Islamic religious scholars on the Afghan-Pakistani frontier have not made any justification for involving children in armed struggle, nor have they set a minimum age, said Sana Haroon, the author of Frontier of Faith.
The United Nations defines fighters under the age of 18 as child soldiers and has criticised both the Afghan government and the insurgency for recruiting children. Child advocates suggest the Taliban may be saying what the international community wants to hear, but acting differently on the ground.
Feriha Peracha says she knows first-hand that the Pakistani Taliban, at the very least, is recruiting young children. She is a psychiatrist rehabilitating 162 boys between the ages of 12 and 17 who were trained by the Taliban in northwest Pakistan. About 30 were trained as suicide bombers, she says. They were often given alcohol or drugs prior to a suicide mission.
She has heard of girls being used by militants to transport suicide vests from Afghanistan into Pakistan, because girls are ignored at checkpoints.
Peracha said she hoped to get her colleagues working soon with Kainat, the Pakistani girl who was returned to her family last night. “She needs some psychosocial intervention and we’ll try to help her out.”
Kainat received many hugs and tears of joy when she returned from hospital with her uncle and cousin, according to her father, Mohammad Afzal.
“When we wanted to talk to her she replied very little and was not feeling well,” said Afzal by telephone. The girl later cried out in her sleep. “We hope she may be okay in a few days.”
Upon her return home, Kainat, whose name was reported in the media as Sohana Javed — incorrectly, her father said — reiterated her story to her parents.
A white car carrying two men and two women approached her as she left school. They put a piece of cloth over her mouth and she passed out, waking up to find her abductors arranging a suicide vest on her near the Islam Darra police checkpost in Dir. The jacket did not fit, so her captors returned to the car to fetch another one. In the meantime, Kainat cried for help to security forces, who took her into custody.
The Pakistani Taliban spokesman in nearby Mohmand Agency, Sajad Mohmand, has denied his group’s involvement. —