ISLAMABAD: Security forces have rescued several children forcibly recruited by the Taliban, allegedly to be used as fighters or suicide bombers, and there could be hundreds more like them, an army official said Tuesday.
The claim came as a suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into a checkpoint in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region, causing an explosion that killed two police and wounded five security officials, authorities said.
Pakistani troops are engaged in offensives against the Taliban in various areas along the lawless border with Afghanistan, fighting militants often drawn from among the local communities.
A big challenge, says General
Lt. Gen. Nadeem Ahmed, who heads a special support group tasked with handling the return of people displaced by three months of fighting in the Swat Valley and surrounding areas, said he had met nine boys rescued from the Taliban.
“They have been brainwashed and trained as suicide bombers, but the nine who I met seemed willing to get back to normal life,” he told Pakistani state-run television. He said the children had told him there were many more, possibly hundreds, like them.
“It seems that there are some 300 to 400 such children who the Taliban had taken forcibly or who they were training,” said Lt. Gen. Ahmed.
He did not say how the nine boys he had met had been rescued. A psychiatrist would examine the children to recommend how they should be reintegrated into society, he said. “It will be a big challenge” to reverse the indoctrination they received, Lt. Gen. Ahmed noted.
He said the boys had sometimes been lured by offers of food, but that they had been underfed and some had fallen ill.
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