The caliphate’s cubs: ‘Islamic State’ and child soldiers
His fear is almost palpable. The 15-year old who was caught wearing an explosives belt outside a Shiite mosque in Iraq's oil city of Kirkuk is crying silently while two policemen hold his arms out wide to prevent him from yet igniting the explosives. In August, IS sent him to Kirkuk, just like another boy of his […]Judit Neurink writes for Deutsche Welle:
His fear is almost palpable. The 15-year old who was caught wearing an explosives belt outside a Shiite mosque in Iraq's oil city of Kirkuk is crying silently while two policemen hold his arms out wide to prevent him from yet igniting the explosives.
In August, IS sent him to Kirkuk, just like another boy of his age, who did manage to blow himself up minutes earlier in another Shiite mosque.
The group has lately stepped up the use of children as suicide bombers. Days after the boy in Kirkuk was caught, four teenagers carried out an attack in the Iraqi Shiite town of Karbala. In March another boy did the same at a youth football match in southern Iraq.
