EXCLUSIVE - Child Suicide Bombers

Upadated on: 14 Aug 09 10:50 PM

KARACHI: Who are child suicide bombers in Pakistan and how are they recruited? SAMAA News Director & Current Affairs Amir Zia discussed the phenomenon with expert Zahid Hussain on his show ‘Qaum kay Samnay’ on Aug 6, 2009. Produced below are some excerpts from the transcript:

AMIR ZIA: Zahid saheb, do tell us what kind of people and organizations are involved in this horrifying work?

ZAHID HUSSAIN: Look, the biggest responsibility that is shouldered is shouldered by the so-called ‘aalims’ or ulema or clerics who have given the fatwa that suicide bombings are allowed in Islam. There is a large number of such clerics who have moved to Waziristan. These men say that fighting and suicide bombings against the Pakistan Army is allowed – the army is not taking part in the ‘real’ jihad which according to them is the one that should be fought. These people are the biggest culprits.

And after them the people I hold most responsible are the men who are using these children, who run the camps, who were not just in Swat, but the biggest camp was in South Waziristan, which is being supported by Baitullah Mehsud. And they say that the biggest trainer is Qari Hussain who has lived in Karachi for a long time even though he is a member of the Mehsud tribe. And he had, in a way, established this camp. And people would say that he could convince a child to become a suicide bomber in ten minutes flat.

AMIR: Zahid saheb, you’ve traveled a lot to these areas, what is it that you think these people do to manipulate the minds of these innocent children? What is it that they say to them? What reasons do they give?

ZAHID: First of all they bring them up [tarbiat] into their way of life. And when you see it, for a normal child, if he takes a gun in his hands, there is a feeling of excitement. They come and I think they brainwash them. And the most basic thing they say to the children is that when you do this, you will be rendering a service to Islam. And after that they tell them that if you do this, you will go straight to heaven. I spoke to a lot of people who were in training or who were ready to go for suicide bombings and were caught, and what becomes clear from them is that they are completely brainwashed. And they think that if they did this suicide bombing, they would in fact be doing it in the name of religion. They are told, and this strange thing surfaced in the people who were trained… I met them from three different areas and they had been in different environments but they all said the same one thing, in the wrong exegesis of the Quran, and they were told that all these people are Murt’did and jihad is permitted against the Murt’dim. And then the majority of them, you’ll see that there are two types:

There are those who are really poor and go to the madrassas and their minds are constantly bombarded with…

AMIR: We’ll talk about the socio-economic factors later, but first tell me about their religious centres, what are they like? What are the training camps like where they are brainwashed?

ZAHID: There are two types of training. There is the mental training which in a way you will get at the madrassas in the form of education. The child’s brain is prepped in these places. Then there are a few actual camps in Pakistan, especially in the tribal areas where they are actually physically trained. There is a big network and lots of people are involved. First they used to say that the camps were just in the NWFP, but from the events that recently surfaced, it became absolutely clear that they are in the Punjab as well. That a lot of the suicide bombings that had children who came from here.

And the scale is so large that it was these people who were behind a majority of the suicide bombings after 2007.

Then it came to the fore that a lot of them had been bought and sold. They didn’t even know what they were going to be told to do. There is a well known incident from Mianwalli, Chakwal, there was a suicide bombing at an MNA’s office. Later on they found out that there was an exchange of money and some problem. And the man who had ordered the attack had gone to South Waziristan and brought a child who had been trained as a suicide bomber. And the child had been told that you go and do this against the people who aren’t proper Muslims.

And another major portion of these people are suicide bombers who have been unsuccessful in life…

AMIR: The children who are made suicide bombers, could you talk about their socio-economic outlook? You said they were mostly poor.

ZAHID: They are from the poorest of the poor families.

AMIR: So what about the parents? Do they agree?

ZAHID: Not at all, very few give permission. I’ll give you an example of the four or five children I saw in Swat. Their families were poor, but not that poor. So one child’s father ran a shop, one was a sweeper, one worked in a shop. So what was their outlook? That was during the time of the peace deal when the Taliban had a completely free hand. And a massive number of children was recruited during that period. One child used to study in a school. One used to study in a madrassas. And they were lured in a way, told that they would be given training but they would not be told what for, that ultimately they would be a suicide bomber.

AMIR: Did they find that the children had been the subject of any other abuse?

ZAHID: I think that, and some people have said, that before these incidents the children are drugged. There are two things; they are mentally prepared, ideologically and the second is that at the same time they are being drugged before the attack.

In Taxila, about 2.5 years ago, there was a bombing, there were two people, about 60 to 70 people were killed… there was a third person who was in the mosque at the time. He had panicked and ran. And when they asked him later on, he said, we were told that there are American and foreign people here who work here and are the enemies of Muslims. So this thing is spread.

If you look at the profile, there are the school dropouts. They don’t manage to do anything else in life. They then bring these minds around to suicide bombings.

AMIR: How long does such training take? How long does it take to change their personalities?

ZAHID: It’s not like that, the training can last for months as well. It’s not that they are just given training for suicide bombings. They are first given ‘fikri’ or Quranic teaching. They are given this fundamental training first. I spoke to a boy who had been caught from a South Waziristan camp and he said that different people had come to the Punjab. There were some young men and some children, who were trained there. And when I asked him what they talked about amongst themselves, he said that they didn’t ask each other’s names or talk about anything except these academic/religious matters. We did not ask about where the other person was from, what was their background. And all the people who were at that camp were not known by their real names. They were all known by other names.

So in a way a sense of secrecy is created. And there are different reasons for this and different motivations. Some of them are interested in the training. Others have had some tragedy. There was one child who worked in a clothing shop in Islamabad and his father was a government servant and his brothers and sisters went to school. One of his brothers had joined the Lashkar-e Tayba and fought in Kashmir. He had stopped going to school after seventh grade. And when I asked him why, he said he didn’t feel like studying. And when you looked at him, you could see that he was of average intelligence but didn’t have any purpose in life. He didn’t think he was capable of doing anything in life. And the Lal Masjid… when that happened, I thought about it.

And they are even told that if your parents are involved, then you should kill them as well. So that kind of mind, uneducated, innocent, and if you brainwash it, then you have a human killer.

AMIR: Tell us how these children are taken in their neighbourhoods, among their peers. Are they feared, respected, ignored?

ZAHID: Look, these people become completely isolated. They have run away. They become completely separated from their homes and households. I don’t think that they are left with any links or bonds to their family, neighbourhood or society.

And then, before someone is taken off to commit the attack, one or two days before they take him to a mosque and he meets their big leaders. And they say, come, why don’t you lead the prayers. So they tell a 13 or 14 year old kid to lead the congregation, imamat, because he is about to ascend to a great status [a martyr]. Then they keep them there for two days and he keeps praying during this time. They keep congratulating him. So his mind is already prepared that he’s about to achieve some great feat. It’s not the kind of motivation like you see in Palestine. Those are different conditions.

AMIR: What do the locals do when all of this is going on?

ZAHID: I think that the locals have an intense hatred for this kind of thing. They are not proud of it. Who are they killing? They are killing their own people, fellow Muslims, people from their own country. So I don’t think they are supported. And perhaps they have no idea how much they will be hated. And people don’t know where they have come from. If someone comes from the tribal areas and is taken to Islamabad or Karachi for an attack, how do you identify that person?

AMIR: Thank you for your time Zahid saheb. Nazireen, suicide bombings by children is our topic today. In the next part of the programme we will have you meet Zia Awan, a human rights activist who had worked a lot for child rehabilitation. Back after the break.

ENDS