Omar Khadr: The Youngest Terrorist?

Was Only 15 Years Old When He Was Captured In Afghanistan

(CBS)  Violence became part of life for the Khadrs starting in 2001, when the United States rained bombs on Afghanistan, and the Khadr family found themselves in the middle of a jihad, a holy war. Radical Muslims, like the Khadrs, saw this as a great opportunity to fight and die and get to paradise by becoming martyrs for Islam.

In 2002, Omar was captured in the firefight and asked to be killed. And there was more to come. In 2003, a Pakistani army unit attacked a house with suspected al Qaeda members inside. They showed off the bodies of men they had killed. One of them turned out to be Omar’s father.

Omar's younger brother, Abdul Karim Khadr, 14 years old, had been in the house with his father. He was shot in the back and paralyzed.

In 2004, the remnants of the Khadr family moved back to Toronto, where George Crile interviewed Abdul Karim and his mother, Maha Khadr.

"Were you in some way sorry that you did not die that day?" Crile asked Abdul Karim.

"Yeah," he replied.

Sorry, he said, because he was denied the opportunity of getting to paradise, where 72 stunning virgins would await him. "Somebody would look at them like for 40 years and he would stay looking and looking," Abdul Karim said.

"Because they’re so beautiful?" Crile asked.

"Yeah," the teen replied. "And one piece of her perfume would come it would, you wouldn't smell anything but that."

"Mrs. Khadr, can you explain the concept of the virgins for the brothers?" Crile asked Maha Khadr.

"Yes. They talk about it day and night. And sometimes, some wives would get so, you know, kind of annoyed or they say, 'Well is this all you’re fighting for?' You know? Because they really just go in too much details about the description," she replied.

Abdul Karim said he even offered to become a suicide bomber. "I told my father, 'Just give me a belt and I’ll blow myself up. I'll go and just do anything,'" he said.

As for his brother Omar, Abdul Karim believed he'd get out of Guantanamo and get even. "When he’s all right again he’ll find them again … and take his revenge," he said.

That was in 2004. Today, the Khadrs have changed their tune. In their small apartment in Toronto, they no longer speak about Omar taking revenge.

His mother says she just wants him to come home. "I pray that he’s just, I see him alive standing in front of me," Maha Khadr tells Simon. "I don’t want him to be brought back in a plastic bag. Terrifies me very much."

General Altenburg says that even though Omar Khadr is accused of murdering an American soldier, because of his age the U.S. will not ask for the death penalty.

"Is there anything in his case that bothers you?" Simon asks.

"Bothers me in what way?" Altenburg replies.

"Just bothers you that either he should be considered a child soldier or shouldn’t be mixed with other adults?" Simon asks.

"I'm concerned that anybody that age is on a battlefield, but once there and once doing the types of things that he was doing, I think that the system should probably prosecute him the way they are," Altenburg says.

And that is as an adult and a terrorist. And even if Omar Khadr is exonerated to some extent at his trial, the United States does not have to let him go until the war, this war on terror, is over.

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Out of the 305 detainees in Guantanamo, Omar Khadr's case will be only the second to be prosecuted. The U.S. says an eyewitness has recently provided new evidence that could bolster Khadr's defense.