BAGHDAD, Feb. 6, 2008
U.S.: Al Qaeda In Iraq Training Children
Seized Videotapes Show Young Boys Learning How To Kill And Kidnap, Officials Say
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Al Qaeda Videos Target Kids
Children as young as six-years-old are being turned into killers, after being recruited through al Qaeda training videos that make war look like a game. Mark Strassmann reports.
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The New Mujahedeen
"CBS News RAW:" U.S. military Rear Admiral Gregory Smith explains a video recovered from a raid on an al Qaeda hideout, depicting Iraqi children in a mock raid carrying guns.
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Iraqi Kids In Terror Training
Seized video shows children in training to be the next generation of terrorists. Maggie Rodriguez talks to CBS News Terrorism Analyst Paul Kurtz about what the video represents.
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U.S. and Iraqi officials said they could offer no estimate on how many children have fallen under al Qaeda in Iraq's control. (AP Photo/US Military)
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This undated image made from video released by the U.S. military in Iraq which it says shows an apparent al Qaeda training operation. The videotapes seized during U.S. raids on suspected al Qaeda in Iraq hide-outs show the terror group training young boys to kidnap and assassinate civilians, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008. (AP Photo/US Military)
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Battle For Iraq
The government, the insurgency, key players, background and photos.
Footage aired for reporters showed an apparent training operation with black-masked boys - some of whom appeared to be about 10 years old - storming a house and holding guns to the heads of mock residents. Another tape showed a young boy wearing a suicide vest and posing with automatic weapons.
It's no game, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann. One recent killer in Iraq was just 11 years old.
"He went into the home of a sheikh in the Anbar province with a box of candy that blew up, killing several," said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman.
U.S. and Iraqi officials said they could offer no estimate on how many children have fallen under the terror group's control. They named just a handful of attacks blamed on women or children.
CBS News terrorism analyst Paul Kurtz discussed the new Al Qaeda-related development on The Early Show. To see the interview, click here.
The American military said some of the tapes were found in December during a U.S. raid in Khan Bani Saad, northeast of Baghdad, and said it indicated a pattern that al Qaeda in Iraq was increasingly using children for sinister means.
"Al Qaeda in Iraq wants to poison the next generation of Iraqis," Rear Adm. Smith told reporters Wednesday inside the heavily guarded Green Zone. "It is offering children as the new generation of mujahedeen," he said, using the Arabic term for holy warriors.
"We believe this video is used as propaganda to send out to recruit other boys ... and to send a broader message across Iraq to indoctrinate youth into al Qaeda," he said.
Kids have often been used as props and pawns, reports Strassmann. In one jihadi video, a boy carries a mortar round. He's 6 years old - too small to reach the mortar without a boost.
Other scenes from the Khan Bani Saad video showed masked boys forcing a man off his bicycle at gunpoint and stopping a car and kidnapping its driver along a dusty country road. At one point the boys - wearing soccer jerseys with ammunition slung across their chests - sit in a circle on the floor, chanting slogans in support of al Qaeda.
Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari told reporters that militants are kidnapping more and more Iraqi children, though he could not offer details or numbers.
"This is not only to recruit them, but also to demand ransom to fund the operations of al Qaeda," al-Askari said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military said Wednesday that its troops, along with Iraqi forces, detained 20 suspected insurgents in four days of raids across Iraq.
In other developments:
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See all 337 CommentsI declare Jihad against all Jihadies who Jihad against my Jihad!
...This could be a big boost for the Hucksterbee campaign. This candidate has stoned, killed and gutted a dog before and will not shirk his duty to ''Mer''ka in dispatching jihadist mutts with extreme prejudice.
When a Regime has lied over 935 times announced that it will lie to us and has the parrots at CBSNBCABCCNNFOXPBS to repeat its lies over and over again...I think I''ll wait and watch the movie...We''ve already seem enough fake Osama videos.
And this recruitment is no doubt greatly helped when the boys in question saw their mother and sisters and brothers and fathers being blown up by "misplaced" U.S. bombs, when 20 tons of high explosive is dropped on a mud brick village that might have harbored a couple of terrorists a week or two earlier (shades of Vietnam and "destroying hamlets to save them".)
Anyone who has lost a family member in a violent death can appreciate the unquenchable hatred such careless killing by the U.S. has likely engendered among the innocent bystanders of Iraq, especially the younger generation.
Yes, Bushit, Darth, and Condie have done a wonderful job encouraging and inciting the next generation of suicide bombers and jihadis.
Thanks, Bushits!
The Pentagoons must have hired Karl Rove!
I recognize the Bu$h$tank....
Just because we were lied into a war doesn''t make Al Qaida right in any way.
You are correct in what you say but I am sad to say that I can no longer take, on faith, that the administration is telling us the truth. This may be the most lasting consequence of the Bush administration.
Fortunately their is enough evidence that Al Qaida is a monstrous organization that doesn''t need U.S. military confirmation. They post their actions online with pride. The U.S. might not smell like roses, but we are not them (Al Qaida). Even the Nazis had more limits than this. At the point that our morals slide that far we will not be America anymore.
One horrible act (preemptive aggression), doesn''t justify another horrific act (suicide bombing, ethnic cleansing, etc). They a both wrong on there own merits.
I declare a Jihad against all Jihadies that Jihad against my glorious Jihad!
In closing you don''t beat monstrous ideology by adopting their tactics (i.e. torture).
The US is not beyond supporting regimes who use child soldiers, torture and mass murder--Pol Pot''s Pretty Party in Kampochea, for instance is the most infamous.
The little black children that the US murdered in New York testing pesticides shows the absolute callousness of the monsters in Washington.
Show us the proof that this tape even exists or was made by some Moslems! All we have are the words of the Regime--that''s not good enough!!
No disagreement from me on the general culpability of Al Qaida. But I will no longer assume that the statements from the administration are fundamentally true.
"Fool me once, shame on ... shame on you. It fool me. We can''t get fooled again."
ARE YOU F*n kidding me? OF COURSE YOU WOULD AND YOU KNOW IT. WHO ARE YOU FOOLING??!!! LOL.
your name says it all. Quoting Mencken was nice but misplaced. When is it ok to alert citizens of danger? Always I say. But of course you are to left-minded to trust anyone but Bill Clinton. Oh wait. Didn''t he lie to a judge and lose his law license and then also lied to you and I on national tv. Hmm. And then you have the audacity to make a claim that we killed their mothers and thats why they are joining Al-Qaeda? Wow, you must know each of those kids personally to have that kind of info. You also seem to forget that the dictator that we deposed was systemically raping, torturing and murdering their mothers for decades prior to our yanking his sorry butt out of a spider hole. That is the real atrocity here. Our soldiers are over there building schools, roads and water delivery systems. Policing the streets and trying to protect the peaceful Iraqis from Al-Qaeda, whom liberals on these blogs say over and over again aren''t in Iraq. Hmmm. Seems that evidence is to the contrary. Wake up!
Just because we were lied into a war doesn''''t make Al Qaida right in any way"--Posted by modemmack
Unfortunately the US has not showed much restraint in killing children when it suited the purposes of the government. From children in Vietnam hamlets in a free fire zone, to the children that happened to be in the house where Saddam''s sons were when some 1000 pound bombs were dropped by the US Air Force, to the innocent bystanders of the recent levelling of the village with 20 tons of HE, when it becomes important to sacrifice children, it is done with the usual media spin of "regrets".
So how is that different from what Al Queda does training teenagers as suicide bombers? They are soldiers in their war.
War is bad for children and other living things.
The kids always get trained to fight the occupiers in any war...from Iraq, to Vietnam, to France''s and Belgium''s children in WWII, to you name it.
If our leadership did not anticipate and plan for this, they''re just stupid.
And don''t quibble about the term "occupier" - I am using the strict definition of the term, as in "we''re their and it isn''t our country", and am NOT referring to motivations.
Posted by Crusherking at 02:37 PM : Feb 06, 2008
January 17, 2006
After five years of banishment from the legal profession, President Clinton will be eligible this week to reclaim the law license he gave up as a consequence of the inaccurate responses he gave under oath to questions about his relationship with a White House intern.
And he didn''t lie about WMDs or start a private war...
I declare Jihad on all Jihadies that Jihad against Bush''s glorious Jihad!
A couple of comments on your last post:
1. Bubba "lied" and obstructed justice and that was the reason his law license was jerked in his HOME state.
2. Bubba and Hillary both said the intelligence on Iraq before the war was correct. So did they lie?
Pick new heros. There are some good choices out there but not Bubba and his enabler.
Fear.
Works for Bu$h every time.
Posted by Crusherking
One lie is better than 935 of them. Saddam was an evil dictator and he certainly isn''t the only one. How come we''re not liberating the world from the others? Oil maybe? Perhaps you should wake up.
Where is their honor?
Men, hiding behind children, sending them to be killed for their own gain??
What God would condone this? These people are NOT doing the work of Allah. They are evil criminals.
Children are pawns to these craze looniticks.
The name/phrase %u201CAl Qaeda-in-Iraq" was coined for the precise purpose of tying AlQeada, inseparably, with Iraq.
The MSM has been, and continues to be, totally complicit in this farce.
Since the Iraq fiasco, Al Qaeda has grown into literally thousands if not hundreds of thousands, and most of them are in Iraq. How many have been killed or captured since 3004? Yet they seem to be everywhere. Everything that happens in Iraq is blamed on them.
Not one incident happens anymore, that is not blamed on them.
The words terrorists and Al Qaeda are used like swords to keep every one scared into thinking The Iraq fiasco was legitimate.
Exactly who are Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq?
Are all Al Qaeda-in-Iraq foreigners or are they simply Iraqi citizens fighting invaders and or each other (civil war)?
15 out of 19 of the 9/11 hijackers plus their alleged leader, Osama Bin Laden, were Saudi%u2019s. Are 75% of all Al Qaeda-in-Iraq, from Saudi Arabia?
After five years of banishment from the legal profession, President Clinton will be eligible this week to reclaim the law license he gave up as a consequence of the inaccurate responses he gave under oath to questions about his relationship with a White House intern.
posted by IOWEIGN at 02:43 PM : Feb 06, 2008
It wasn''t inaccurate responses...it was LYING under oath to a grand jury. Put the word lying in your vocabulary and tell it like it is. Don''t try and sugarcoat it...
Posted by downsteamjim at 03:17 PM : Feb 06, 2008
They also don''t care if they us young women with Downs Syndrome....
Posted by downsteamjim
They also don''''t care if they us young women with Downs Syndrome....
Posted by theUSA1st
I don''t think folks here would be that demented to defend terrorism. I think it''s more of the fact that we shouldn''t be in Iraq to begin with. If we weren''t there, the terrorists wouldn''t be there.
we are not any better than Pravda was,
Bush is the Criminal, he belongs in prison,
and his cabal? They were cheering on the war in Vietnam and saying stay the course in Vietnam in tenth year of that war,
cheney, rumsfeld, wolfowitze, bolten, all halped keep the war in Vietnam going for 15 years,
and they all avoided any military service to their country.
evangelical pigs, they belong in prison
lets NOT elect another evangelical who puts his bible
in front of his constitution and his country.
can''t you read anything but your bible or watch anything but faux news, it is all lies,
Wake Up!
You would probably fight for your freedom in any way you could. I know I would.
you are right on, these so called terriosts are defending their way of life with the only weapons that they have,
you want to talk suicide , well that is when a couple hundred rebels attack a formation of the US military.
they do not have a chance of survival, so how do they fight,
Guerilla warfare is what this is called, and you may
not find in morally acceptable in your evangelical
christian church,but it is a time honored tradition when fighting a tyrant like The AmeriKan bush
Posted by noloyalisti
Not only are we stealing their oil, but we dissolved their army, sent Iraqi soldiers home with no jobs or income all the while we pay our own contractors to "rebuild" Iraq. I don''t blame them for not wanting us there.
Posted by ptruth2 at 03:37 PM : Feb 06, 2008
They are afraid, if they speak out againist the kind of people who do this, that they will be killed.
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Posted by singingrick at 02:45 PM : Feb 06, 2008
lol
NO AL QAEDA, JUST ALL THOSE FAKE WMD''S ON THE BACK OF SEMI''S TRAVELING AROUND THE COUNTRY WITH MORGAS THE MAD SCIENTIST AND HIS SIDE KICK CHOPSLEY. KIDS WENT TO SCHOOL, MARKETS WERE OPEN, NO FIGHTINGS BETWEEN THE LOCAL EFNIC TRIBES. YES, THOSE WERE THE GOOD OLE DAYS.
THEN ALONG CAME THE WORLDS GREATEST PEACEMAKER, A LITTLE SHOCK AND AWE, MILLIONS OF IRAQI''S FORCED TO LEAVE THEIR COUNTRY, THOUSANDS KILLED AND MAMED FOR LIFE. 3954 AMERICAN TROOPS KILLED, THOUSANDS WOUNDED. AND STILL NO END IN SIGHT.
DO YOU NEED TO ASK WHY?????
A military is not a state sponsored terrorist group. Terrorists intend to kill innocents. The military tries very hard not to kill innocents. The problem is that the terrorists in Iraq keep hiding behind the innocents.
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