(12 Year-old) Child suicide bomber kills four in Afghanistan

Source: AFP

A 12-year-old suicide bomber killed four people and wounded a dozen in east Afghanistan on Sunday, while rebel clashes with police and NATO-led troops left five civilians and two police dead, officials said.

The death toll from the day's fighting included at least three children besides the bomber, and dozens of civilians were wounded in firefights as violence appeared to escalate after the Taliban announced a spring offensive.

The boy -- thought to be one of the country's youngest-ever suicide attackers -- detonated an explosive vest in a marketplace in Paktika province near the Pakistan border, provincial spokesman Mukhlis Afghan said.

"The head of Shkin district council, Shair Nawaz, a woman and two other men were killed and 12 others were wounded," he said in a statement. The Afghan interior ministry had earlier put the death toll at three, with 11 wounded.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110501/wl_afp/afghanistanunrestsuicide

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up to that or to fight wars in Africa, or any of a myriad of horrors we've heard reported lately involving children. It is hard to think a suicide bombing could be made any more tragic on its face--but to involve a child... Oh, my...

:(

It's not suicide if you're 12 and adults are pushing you into it.

You can't really convince them into that kind of ideology. More like they turned him into a walking IED. And how do you fight that kind of mindset?! :mad:

That would make them even consider such an act. Maybe they saw their family, mother, father, siblings, vaporized by a predator drone. Maybe occupation troops killed their family at a road side check point. Maybe their grandparents and cousins were incinerated in an attack aimed at people who weren't anywhere in the immediate vicinity.

Maybe they heard about Abu Ghraib or Fallujah. Maybe the most powerful military force on earth gave them all the reason they needed and maybe their equivalent of our right wing lunatics and neo-cons here in the USA took advantage of all the opportunities our political and military leaders provided them.

And back here at home we repeat the mantra that guarantees the continuation of these horrors we perpetrate:
"Thank you for your service."

Wearing someone else's shoes, seeing things from another's vantage point, empathy...

That's part of the empathy thing. ;-)

none of that hapened at all. Instead maybe some religious nuts got ahold of the kid.

Heck, the child who carried out the attack in the OP could be one of these children: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_xoyosKy3w

And I've seen some really fucking fucked up shit that has seered into my mind. :cry:

Iraq happened. Fallujah happened. Abu Ghraib happened. Predator attacks that kill innocent civilians including women and children happen.

I'm not disagreeing that some religious nuts could have got hold of the kid but considering the level of religious extremism in our country AND IN OUR MILITARY RIGHT NOW TODAY it's also very possible that some of the aforementioned events, events that definitely did happen, could have also played a large role as well or could have made the religious nuts' recruitment efforts much easier.

We're dealing with a clash of cultures. Blaming everything on enemy extremism while minimizing our own extremism is a recipe for more of the same.

get even with the west isn't culture, it is barbarity that should be hunted to end of the earth and wiped out. Quit with the false equvulancey in a desperate attempt to make these animals appear like bestial. No I'm not talking about all Muslims or even the majority of afghans (because I know they wouldn't support child suicide bombers), but any strain of any religious belief that would force a child towards this (like radical Islam) is the lowest most rotten fruit on the tree that is the human experience.

Is actually just our views versus their views.

Then you try to equate people with animals (some would criticize you for debasing animals in many cases) in an outrageous attempt to dehumanize them and make it OK to commit atrocities against them while they're still something less than human for committing atrocities against us.

I've said this many times to many people and I always get the same reaction when that person is an American.

GEORGE W. BUSH DID THE SAME THING TO IRAQ THAT OSAMA BIN LADEN DID TO AMERICA ON 9/11. ONLY DIFFERENCES ARE, IRAQ'S 9/11 LASTED FOR YEARS AND DIDN'T KILL 3,000 PEOPLE. GEORGE W. BUSH'S IRAQI 9/11 KILLED AND MAIMED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. WHICH ONE IS LESS HUMAN THAN THE OTHER?

I don't normally insult people on du, but if you think a 12 has the mental capacity to even process abu ghraib or Fallujah much less make a educated choice to kill themselves over it you are a the real child. Quit trying to excuse away this barbarity.

I imagine many will engage in conjecture for the ever-alluring post-hoc-ergo-pormpter-hoc to better validate our own biases. I imagine it's a human trait too.

he was strapped to a bomb and his "leaders" just used him as a weapon. Makes more sense than your theory.

It has happened whenever there is ideological guerilla fighting, civil wars, or any other conflict. To a lesser extent, it goes on in civilian life - brainwashing kids that it's okay to bully other kids for being the wrong color, religion, or political party.
If the child agreed to this, well, at 12, kids want to be heros, and if they're in a desperate, fear-filled situation, it would be easy to convice him (or her) that Mommy and Daddy, and all the other relatives will be so proud of him.
Many other incidents I have heard of - the five year old handed a grenade and told to give pull the pin before he gave it to the soldier at the guard post, the younger kids told their parents would be killed if they didn't do what they were told -
Prior to the middle of the 20th century, the kids were mainly used as runners and scouts, or to set traps, because the instruments of distruction and war tended to be too heavy for the average child to handle. As weapons that could kill or injure an adult grew smaller, children began to be drafted into actual, physical combat or suicide attack activity.

When the struggle becomes more important than the people it's supposed to help, this is the sort of thing that happens.

Haele

Another U.S. military invasion based on lies.

It is just sad when someone is so blinded by their dislike of aspect of western civilization they can't even recognize real evil anymore.

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evil

adjective/noun

1.
morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life.
2.
harmful; injurious: evil laws.
3.
characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days.
–noun
4.
that which is evil; evil quality, intention, or conduct: to choose the lesser of two evils.

1. Of course things can be contrary to morality.
2. Things can be harmful
3. Things can be accompanied by misfortune or suffering.
4. Evil when used a noun is just something that has one or more above the above qualities.

I'm little surprised by your assertion that evil doesn't exist, I'll admit often evil is often just a matter of perspective, but clearly I'm speaking from a modern western perspective. Now if you were to assert ABSOLUTE EVIL doesn't exist I'd agree with that, but that doesn't mean calling a act which is contary to modern morality, harmful and accompained by misfortune or suffering (as is the case here) evil is wrong.

at least no morality that can be applied across every culture. maybe proscriptions on "murder" or "stealing" at the most. the majority of humans alive today probably have some pretty backward thinking. and as far as i know, there's no established authority on what is and isn't morally modern. there is no pope of moral modernity.

Bin laden is dead.

Paradise at last.

Questioning my "patriotism"? Is that what "patriotism" is to you? Being unable to admit "western civilization" isn't capable of real evil too?

That really is just sad.