Sleeper cells of child suicide bombers in Iraq – newspaper

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: A raid on an al-Qaeda hideout north of Baghdad has uncovered evidence of a network of child suicide bombers who have been coerced into launching terrorist attacks across Iraq, The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper said on Friday. “A blueprint for the training and recruitment of children was stored on a computer memory stick found on the body of an emir of al-Qaeda in northern Iraq after he was killed in an assault on his underground hideout in mid-November,” the newspaper said. “Military and intelligence officials say Abu Ghazwan, the most wanted man in the Diyala province, 64 kilometres north of the capital, was directly responsible for recruiting many children as suicide bombers, including two who detonated themselves during the summer.” Data recovered from the raid reveals Ghazwan was using youth groups to recruit young men in a network that spread as far north as Mosul and to Abu Ghraib west of Baghdad. The use of children had been seen as a way to bypass security checks that have gradually become more stringent nationwide. “US forces have been trying for weeks to disrupt plans to lead children to their deaths. An attack on areas identified on the memory stick turned up little, but officials remain convinced that the Abu Ghazwan cell had developed sleeper cells of children who will be directed by his successors to take part in future attacks. Such a scheme is considered depraved in Iraq, where entrapping the most vulnerable members of society has at times become commonplace throughout three years of insurgency,” it added. “Two children did carry out attacks during the summer, with one seriously injuring a sheik belonging to the so-called Awakening movement, also known as the Sons of Iraq, and the other killing an American soldier. Many more are understood to have been coerced and both US and Iraqi officials are trying to find them,” it said. Last week, 18 women who had been recruited as suicide bombers, also in Diala, handed themselves into US forces and joined the ranks of the reconciliation movement, which offers offenders pardons for past crimes if they disavow violence. Their surrender followed at least 27 attacks launched by women from the same area over the past 18 months. “A girl as young as 13 was the last to explode herself in Diala, although a woman exploded at a Baghdad checkpoint last week. The teenager died in late October along with five other Sons of Iraq officials, whom she had targeted in Baaquba, the regional capital of Diala.” A boy aged 10 blew himself up in September next to Sheik Imad Jassem, the joint leader of the Sons of Iraq in Tarmiya, seriously wounding him. The boy stalked him for three days, masquerading as a flower seller across the road from the sheik’s house. The child assassin sprinted towards the sheik as he stepped from his front gate, but tripped on his thongs several metres before his target and exploded his bomb prematurely. The sheik lost one leg and is recovering in a US hospital. His father, Sheik Sayed Jassem, was threatened by Abu Ghazwan before he was killed in a shoot-out in November. Sheik Jassem and other Iraqis in the town say Abu Ghazwan recruited the child who tried to kill his son. “We know who sent the child,” Sheik Jassem said, hinting that the boy’s handlers were connected to the police. “They are a gang and we have arrested some of them … We know their history, they were in full co-operation with al-Qaeda and shared all their equipment and arms. No one would dare go to the police station.” In a statement released this week, Major Al Hing, from the 2nd Stryker Brigade 25th Infantry Division, said: “Beginning around March-April, we started to see a conglomeration of cells … associated with the recruitment and implementation of youth suicide bombers … “There were multiple reports that indicated there was a suicide cell operating in Tarmiya un