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8-year-old Afghan tricked into suicide bombing
US soldiers from Viper Company (Bravo), 1-26 Infantry talk to a boy during a patrol in a village at Combat Outpost (COP) Sabari in Khost province in the east of Afghanistan on June 22, 2011. Insurgents have increasingly used children in suicide attacks in Afghanistan.
(Credit: Getty Images)Of the many desperate, sadistic tactics deployed by insurgents in Afghanistan, this is surely among the worst ever recorded: Authorities say that an 8-year-old girl was tricked into carrying a concealed bomb close to a police vehicle, where it was remotely detonated, the Associated Press reports. Only she died.
The incident occurred in a remote village called Uwshi, in the Charchino District, said Fazal Ahmad Shirzad, the police chief of Uruzguan Province.
Shirzad told the New York Times he believes that the girl was completely unaware that the bag that she had been given by Taliban insurgents held a bomb.
CBSNews.com special report: Afghanistan
The sad tale of the girl allegedly tricked into blowing herself up is a sober reminder for President Obama and an American public eager to pull troops out of the region that not only is it still incredibly violent there, but whatever is motivating the violence of the insurgents has led to increasingly desperate tactics that fall well outside the lines of what most of the world considers decent.
The insurgency has occasionally used children in its attacks, in an attempt to avoid detection, the AP reports.
It has been recorded many times that insurgent leaders rarely, if ever, volunteer themselves for suicide bombing missions, and their targets are increasingly becoming women and children bystanders.
A suicide car bomber attacked a health clinic in eastern Afghanistan as women and children lined up for maternity care and vaccinations on Saturday, killing at least 37 people, the Associated Press reports.
If they're not targeting women and children, insurgent leaders have increasingly been deploying women on their behalf in suicide attacks for years, even as they profess a desire to give women in the region the least amount of rights of just about anywhere on Earth.
Right around the same time in Pakistan as the attack on the health clinic in Afghanistan, a married couple acting on behalf of the Pakistan Taliban attacked a police station, killing 10 people, The Guardian reports. They disguised themselves in burqas to enter the police station with little scrutiny, then opened fire with guns and grenades in what led to a five-hour siege, all before blowing themselves up.
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Joshua Norman Joshua Norman is an associate editor at CBSNews.com.
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