The “holy warriors” of the Taliban are already using children to decapitate helpless captives, so it comes as no surprise that their depraved jihad now includes 6-year old suicide bombers.

Children as young as six are being used by the Taliban in increasingly desperate suicide missions, coalition forces in Afghanistan claimed yesterday.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), to which Britain contributes 5,000 troops in southern Afghanistan, revealed that soldiers defused an explosive vest which had been placed on a six-year-old who had been told to attack Afghan army forces in the east of the country. …

The boy had been ordered to target a check point in Miri, in the Andar district of Ghazni province.

“They placed explosives on a six-year-old boy and told him to walk up to the Afghan police or army and push the button,” said Captain Michael Cormier, the company commander who intercepted the child, in a statement. “Fortunately, the boy did not understand and asked patrolling officers why he had this vest on.”

Lieutenant Colonel David Accetta, ISAF eastern regional command spokesman, told the Guardian: “In the past we have not seen the Taliban sink that low, to use children as suicide bombers. The personnel secured the vest to make sure the child was safe.”

Lt Col Accetta said the procedure for dealing with an armed minor had so far been untested in Afghanistan. “It would have been difficult to know what to do considering it was a six-year-old boy and he was presumably going to push the button himself or someone was going to detonate it for him remotely,” Lt Col Accetta said.

The rules of military engagement are easily muddied when a child poses a direct threat, he explained. “What we do if we identify the fact that an adult is wearing a suicide vest is we use whatever force we deem necessary to protect the lives of our soldiers and any civilians. Of course it makes it more difficult - it’s a six year-old child.”

(Hat tip: LGF readers.)