New York:
A disturbing video posted recently on YouTube, which has received more than 300,000 hits, shows a group of young Afghan or Pakistani Pashtun boys enacting a suicide bombing where one of them, whose face is covered by a black mask, bids farewell to others and then pretends to blow himself up.
The boys all appear to be pre-teen with some looking as young as 5-years-old in the video, which is slightly over one-minute long.
After hugging the smaller boys, the child role-playing the bomber walks towards another group of boys. One of them, dressed in white, stick out his hand to signal stop. But the bomber walks towards them and suddenly throws up some dust, which represents the explosion.
The boys then fall to floor pretending to be dead, and the camera then zooms into each of their faces.
The video featuring a group of young Afghan or Pakistani Pashtun boys is accompanied with background music which, 'The New York Times' reported, is one of the Taliban's favourite songs "My beloved is going to fight, so he has long hair...He carries his machine gun on his shoulder, which looks so fine on him... He is going to battle, going to fight."
The Taliban, however, said that they did not make the video but they approved of its content, the paper said.
"We are saddened that children are playing this game, but they should do it because this is a war that was imposed upon us," Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman for the northern and eastern parts of Afghanistan, was quoted as saying by the paper.
Mujahid claimed that the minimum approved age for fighters was 18 or 19 and boys younger than 18 have been arrested on the battlefield.
"The positive aspect of the video is that it motivates the children for 'jihadi' ideas," said Mujahid.
"The negative point is that it affects their lives. It gives them courage for this kind of work, but children should not do this kind work at this age. But they should have an idea about 'jihad' in their mind, and they should prepare themselves for sacrifice," he was quoted as saying.
The boys all appear to be pre-teen with some looking as young as 5-years-old in the video, which is slightly over one-minute long.
After hugging the smaller boys, the child role-playing the bomber walks towards another group of boys. One of them, dressed in white, stick out his hand to signal stop. But the bomber walks towards them and suddenly throws up some dust, which represents the explosion.
The boys then fall to floor pretending to be dead, and the camera then zooms into each of their faces.
The video featuring a group of young Afghan or Pakistani Pashtun boys is accompanied with background music which, 'The New York Times' reported, is one of the Taliban's favourite songs "My beloved is going to fight, so he has long hair...He carries his machine gun on his shoulder, which looks so fine on him... He is going to battle, going to fight."
The Taliban, however, said that they did not make the video but they approved of its content, the paper said.
"We are saddened that children are playing this game, but they should do it because this is a war that was imposed upon us," Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman for the northern and eastern parts of Afghanistan, was quoted as saying by the paper.
Mujahid claimed that the minimum approved age for fighters was 18 or 19 and boys younger than 18 have been arrested on the battlefield.
"The positive aspect of the video is that it motivates the children for 'jihadi' ideas," said Mujahid.
"The negative point is that it affects their lives. It gives them courage for this kind of work, but children should not do this kind work at this age. But they should have an idea about 'jihad' in their mind, and they should prepare themselves for sacrifice," he was quoted as saying.
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