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Weapon shaped pens breed new generation of Pak extremists

Inspired by videos produced by militants, children pretend to be suicide bombers or fighters. Their discussions revolve around the Taliban's latest activities, their attacks and killings.

Pens resembling pistols, rocket launchers and knives are being sold to children without any check in Pakistan’s militant infested tribal belt particularly Swat Valley where Buddhism flourished once.


School children acting like the Taliban or the army personnel and talking about kidnapping and killing each other are a normal site in the picturesque Swat, which embraced Islam after Mahmood of Ghazni, crushed the last Buddhist King, Raja Gira in battle in 1023 AD    

“While visiting different parts of the (Swat) valley I saw school children using toys which looked like weapons such as pistols, rocket launchers and knives,” Neelam Abrar, a local student peace activist, told Dawn. She was told that these were easily available at the local China market. 

Ms Neelam, a college student in Saidu Sharif, the headquarters of Swat, received training about the importance of peace in a workshop conducted by a non- governmental organisation, Paiman.

“The youth of the country, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KP) are being exploited in the name of religion, poverty and material resources”, said Mussarat Qadeem, the executive director of Paiman, and a prominent local politician.

Pakistan’s army declared the Swat valley free of militants after carrying out an anti-Taliban operation in 2009 but the militants of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have since staged a comeback.

UN agency, IRIN also reports that children particularly in North Waziristan, which is close to Swat, have been traumatised as they have been living with armed conflict for nearly a decade. Many children have grown up knowing only war, and the long-term effects of what they are experiencing worries mental health professionals, it said in a dispatch from Peshawar. 

Inspired by videos produced by militants, children pretend to be suicide bombers or fighters. Their discussions revolve around the Taliban’s latest activities, their attacks and killings, Nasir Dawar, a journalist, told IRIN. “Even my own children at home were always bringing [home] stories of Al-Qaeda, [the] local Taliban, drone strikes, and killings in Mir Ali, in North Waziristan,”  

The Taliban’s videos show children as young as 12 beheading prisoners. 
 
One popular game amongst children is soldiers-and-Taliban. Around 10 children divide into two groups, one acting as the military, and the other as the Taliban. Most want to be in the Taliban. 
 
Four children with sticks, pretending to be soldiers, try to find the Taliban, who fan out to hide. The Taliban always outnumber the soldiers. They ambush the soldiers, and the children throw dust into the air to imitate explosions, and then capture the soldiers. 
 
An “Amir” (leader) – an older child – then delivers a victory speech. “O Infidels, beware! Whoever works for you will face the same consequences. These are traitors of Islam. They sold their honour for dollars. Death to them!” The rest of children shout “God is Great!”. When a kite appears in the sky the children rush to safety, shouting, “ghangay, ghangay!!” 

For children and elders alike, ghangay stands for the drone flying across the sky and dropping bombs to kill the militants.  US drones have struck more than 50 times in Datta Khel, killing hundreds of militants and civilians. West of Miran Shah, about 17km from the Afghan border Datta Khel is a popular corridor for insurgents travelling to Afghanistan.

North Waziristan hosted the special camps set up by al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks on New York, to train children for its special group of child fighters, called Jaish ul Tifal.  The original camps are since closed down and most of the Arab instructors have fled Pakistan, but a host of other groups in North Waziristan are inspired to start their own programmes to recruit children.
 
 More than 43 percent of the population of the Federally Administered Tribal Area  is under the age of 14, according to official figures, which means a large part of the population have grown up knowing war. Children are often doubly affected by the conflict, says Sana Ijaz, who has worked with children in FATA through the Bacha Khan Trust Education Foundation, a local NGO. 

Only 33 percent of children in the FATA attend school. The Department of Education says more than 1,183 schools – a third of the total in the region – are closed because they have been damaged, or people fear being caught in the crossfire between the military and the Taliban. 

In the schools that are still open there is often a shortage of teachers – in Bajaur Agency there is one teacher for every 74 students. 
–by ram singh kalchuri 

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