Child Warriors for Jihad

How to reform a country that has a collective iron will to resist the incursions of foreigners, of those alien to their culture, who find fault in what has been engrained in the public weal, an amalgam of religion and ancient tribal practices?  Afghanistan has suffered more than its share of invasions.  And it has always, somehow, managed to shed the insult of values that others have attempted to layer over their own.

What the representatives of the outside world diagnose as society's ills in Afghanistan born of ancient traditions that would anywhere else shout out loud and clear !!abuse!! of women and children, of power gone amok, of violations of human rights, represent to Afghans the normal order of business in a world where poverty and power are at polarizing ends and those afflicted by both represent the great seething centre.

Corruption has always abounded there, where nothing is accomplished without the expedient of greasing outstretched palms, for if someone seeks something he must be prepared to give something in return.  This is not graft, it is survival.  Warlords of course, in their nefarious nature and their exponential greed, must also survive and they must do so splendidly, in gifts reflecting their power.

The faithful submit to worship of Islam, to an all-powerful Allah who is also merciful and who loves his followers, and who also cedes to them nothing but goodwill should they earn it.  Humble submission is very well and good, and martyrdom is even better for the greater glory of the cause of Islam which demands a universal worship of its greatness.

A miniature from Padshahnama depicting the surrender of the Safavid garrison of Kandahar in 1638 to the Mughals, which was re-taken by the Safavids in 1649 during the Mughal-Safavid war.

 

Afghanistan has experienced, moreover, the misfortune of foreign invasion from time immemorial as part of the famous Silk Road route.  From Alexander the Great, to the Mongols, to imperial Russia, and colonialist Britain - and now Pakistan has designs on accessing its geography and absorbing it into its own.  And Pakistan's own Taliban, as tribal people of the Hindu Kush reflect the values of the Afghan Taliban.

The Taliban is prepared to do its part in ensuring that through dogged repetition, one incident after another, the perseverance of the fanatic, all will fall into place; a more widespread surrender that will eventually herald triumph.  Starting with the the society which they infest, indigenous Pakistanis are encouraged to sell their extra mouths, surrender children to be trained.

Always for the greater glory of Islam.  Where even seven-year-old boys after having been indoctrinated into the ideology of violent jihad are sent into the field to Afghanistan to kill.  Pakistani security estimate that thousands of children have been killed in the exercise of bestowing glory upon Allah.  Bought from impoverished families, the children's parents are assured they will be well fed, educated; an exaltation awaits them.

And through relentless indoctrination techniques the children are turned into willing suicide bombers anxious to sacrifice what Allah owns anyway, their very lives, in attacking the infidels, NATO forces in Afghanistan - or becoming part of the proud resistance against the government of Pakistan itself.  One Pakistani boy blew himself up outside a Sufi shrine, killing 45 people, maiming 175, in 2010.

Of the 200 estimated attacks carried out through the auspices of teenage Taliban suicide bombers, success was realized in the deaths of over 4,000 people.  Leaving the government of Pakistan with a monumental headache; how to eradicate these monstrous efforts on the part of the Taliban to deploy children as fighters and martyrs, and how to go about reclaiming the humanity of the young recruits?

"Our main task is to try to reverse the brainwashing they have suffered at the hands of the Taliban.  We are trying to break the myth of misplaced perceptions perpetrated by the terrorists", explained Col. Mohammed Islam, who operates a school funded by UNICEF and the government of Pakistan, attempting to reverse the psychological drama inflicted upon the children who have survived their ordeal.

Operating as a boarding school in the frontier town of Malakand, its exact location kept secret for fear of attacks by the Taliban - despite which there have been Taliban attacks against the school, as well as assassinations of some of their teachers - the curriculum includes a staff of child psychologists to turn the children away from their previous terror agenda.

Another unfortunate hurdle is that once the school has graduated its child jihadists, satisfied it has managed to transform them back into normal children with normal aspirations, it must grapple with the problem of persuading reluctant parents to absorb their children back into their families.  "The families don't want them because of the cost", explained a teacher.

The rate of recidivism has been found to be quite low; of those so far rescued from the Taliban and released from the school, only three are known to have rejoined their Taliban masters.