“They said if I want to live, I have to do as they say.”
These words were uttered by a teenager I met at the Nahr Al Bared Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon. His face was concealed by a scarf. He clutched an old Kalashnikov rifle.
He, like many others, had forcibly been made a member of the Al Qaeda-inspired Fatah Al Islam militant group, which set up base in that camp in 2006. Many of them were killed in a battle with the Lebanese army in 2007, with reports that some of those who survived have joined ISIL and other groups.
This boy was stationed as a guard at one of the entrances, and given the vulnerability of this position, he was probably one of the first ones to die during a battle.
I sensed his despair and asked him why he was with them as I was leaving the camp. He had such tired eyes as he looked right and left, to make sure no one was listening to him, before he told me he was forced to do so.
“You don’t understand, there’s no choice.”
I remembered these words as the world recently watched a 15-year-old boy being held in place by men in uniform as photos and videos were taken of him shirtless with a deadly beige cloth belt filled with more than 2 kilograms of explosives dangling from his waist.
He was caught this week by Iraqi security forces in Kirkuk after officials became suspicious of this would-be-suicide bomber when he was seen pacing the street.
While information remains sketchy, the boy had told the authorities that “masked men” had kidnapped him from Mosul and brought him to Kirkuk with a mission to destroy.
All sorts of stories are being circulated as to why he would do it, without the real answers coming out.
It is not the first time a child has been used in warfare. There have been reports of child suicide bombers in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Iraq and Palestine. Turkey was put on the list this week after the wedding bombing which was thought to have been carried out by a child. This claim was later retracted.
It is easy to manipulate a youth and a child, especially one who has lost everything and is grieving and vulnerable. Out of the 14 million children suffering hardship and trauma from the wars in Iraq and Syria, as stated by the United Nations children’s agency last year, it is not hard to imagine a large number of them are orphans preyed on by extremist groups.
It is our fault for leaving these children and youth to suffer on their own. Yet we are shocked when they are used and abused by groups such as ISIL and others.
It is not just the children. Women are targeted for sexual exploits as well as suicide bombers. For example, the female suicide bomber has become the signature weapon of the Nigerian jihadist group, Boko Haram. Before that, there were female suicide bombers in Chechnya and from Pakistan to Lebanon.
The children and women are being used because they can slip into places unnoticed or were, until recently, not checked as thoroughly by security.
One thing to remember is that suicide is haram – forbidden – in Islam, and yet it is still being propagated by terrorists as the quickest way to heaven.
Prophet Mohammed in more than one narration said: “He who kills himself with something, will be tormented with it on the Day of Resurrection,” and repeatedly warned of eternity in the Fire of Hell, where Allah will punish the killers with the means that they used to commit suicide. For those forced to kill or be killed, we wish them peace and mercy.
rghazal@thenational.ae
On Twitter: @arabianmau
