A new low: Taliban commander tries to turn his ten-year-old sister into a suicide bomber

Hussam Abdo

Using your ten-year-old sister as a human bomb is a new low  – even for terrorists – but the Taliban aren’t the first to use children as human bombs. 

Ten years ago in 2004, the Palestinian terror war against Israel was losing its effectiveness, as the Israelis were managing to block the large majority of attacks. The terrorists tried using women as bombers, but they were caught as regularly as the men.

So the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades tried a new tactic: using a child as a human bomb. They sent Hussam Abdo, a mentally delayed 14-year-old, on a suicide attack. Fortunately he was stopped at a checkpoint. "I don't want to blow up," he told Israeli soldiers, who helped him remove his suicide belt without harm.

From The Washington Times:

Afghan girl, 10, says Taliban brother forced her into suicide bomb plot

By Cheryl K. Chumley

An Afghan girl, 10, said she was forced to carry out a suicide attack, which failed, on a local police station in Helmand province, sparking an outrage from President Hamid Karzai and the international community.

“Children are the future-makers of the country,” he said, in a statement reported by CNN. “They should be taken care of, and education opportunities should be provided for them. They shouldn’t be used as a tool for suicide attacks.”

It’s not clear how the suicide bombing was thwarted, But the girl, known only as Spozhmai, is only one of several children who have been used as a tool of terrorists in Afghanistan. CNN  reported that Afghan police discovered 41 children between the ages of 6 and 11 who were integral to militants’ suicide bomb plots in the last 12 months.