Brave Mujahideen Warriors Use Children in Car Bomb

Tue, Mar 20, 2007 at 3:20:16 pm PDT

There are no words.

Iraq insurgents used children in car bombing.

Insurgents in Iraq detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle with two children in the back seat after US soldiers let it through a Baghdad checkpoint over the weekend, a senior US military official said Tuesday.

The vehicle was stopped at the checkpoint but was allowed through when soldiers saw the children in the back, said Major General Michael Barbero of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. “Children in the back seat lowered suspicion. We let it move through. They parked the vehicle, and the adults ran out and detonated it with the children in the back,” Barbero said.

The general said it was the first time he had seen a report of insurgents using children in suicide bombings. But he said Al-Qaeda in Iraq is changing tactics in response to the tighter controls around the city. A US defense official said the incident occurred on Sunday in Baghdad’s Adhamiyah district, a mixed neighborhood adjacent to Sadr City, which is predominantly Shiite.

After going through the checkpoint, the vehicle parked next to a market across the street from a school, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

“And the two adults were seen to get out of the vehicle, and run from the vehicle, and then followed by the detonation of the vehicle,” the official said. “It killed the two children inside as well as three other civilians in the vicinity. So, a total of five killed, seven injured.”

Officials here said they did not know who the children were or their relationship to the two adults who fled the scene. They had no information about their ages or genders.