The BBC has a chilling story of Meena, a young Pakistani girl from Dir whose father and brother are Taliban. The father and brother had recruited, trained, and deployed many suicide bombers, according to Meena. They tried to make her become a suicide bomber, too, and forced her 9-year-old younger sister to carry out a suicide bombing attack in Afghanistan. From the BBC:
They attached a bomb to my sister Nahida. They tied rectangular pieces to both her arms, and a black strip was wrapped around both her legs.
Then they connected the whole thing. She told my brother the bomb was heavy and she could not walk. He said she would be comfortable once she was sitting down in the car.
They gave her medicine. But she was crying very loud for my mother. She kept going to her and hugging her. When my sister looked down at the bomb, she shivered.
Then my brother and my father started beating my mother, and they were shouting: “Why you are distracting the girl from her mission?”
I heard my sister saying: “Where is Meena? I want to see her.” But I didn’t have the strength. My heart couldn’t take it.
My mother fainted when they put her in the car. My brother said my sister’s attack was in Afghanistan.
Do read the whole thing. Then remember that Taliban like Meena’s father and brother are the very people the Pakistani government has repeatedly negotiated with, and are the same people with whom the Afghan and Westerns governments now seek to negotiate. Some Afghan, Pakistani, NATO, and UN leaders would be quite happy to bring Mullah Omar into the fold of the government.
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2 Comments
She must’ve had an angel looking after her. She went out of the house to bring back a goat that had wandered off…all the way down to a river. After she reached there helo gun-ships happened to appear and her home and family went off in a puff of smoke. She survived her ‘family-business’ of purveyors of suicide bombs and lived to tell this poignant tale.
Here’s another report of interest from the beeb entitled ‘Mystery of Balochistan disappearances’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8486736.stm
I am certain that most Muslims would be appalled and aghast at the fact that those terrorists are resorting to child suicide bombers to carry out those attacks.
Bill, if you analyze closely the captured video of the suicide bomber that assassinated Bhutto, it looks to me like a child suicide bomber made to appear as an adult.
In addition, from the glazed look in his eyes and the way he approached her limo it looks to me like not only was it a child suicide bomber dressed out to appear much older but also he appeared to be drugged.
The mass majority of Muslims are adamantly against the use of children for suicide bombings, even among those that still condone suicide bombings.
Maybe we can now convince them of this reality; in addition to the reality that (at least) their leaders won’t hesitate to dress up like women (by wearing burqas) to hide their identity from legitimate security personnel.