Badri Battalion: Taliban sponsors death by children
Despite the transformation of the
Taliban movement from a terrorist movement to a government running Afghanistan,
suicide bombings remain a major strategy for the Taliban, as the movement published
after seizing power in August 2021 a picture of one of its affiliated
divisions, displaying its jackets, bombs and explosive devices on social media,
where the Taliban was known to fill its ranks with children, which is
considered an international war crime. Although the Taliban is now the dominant
force in the country, it will not prevent minors from joining its ranks.
Badri Battalion
A report for the National Interest
magazine said that child soldiers and suicide bombings characterize the Taliban's
rule in Afghanistan, despite its transformation into a government charged with
taking care of a country with a population of 38 million people. The report
noted that the Taliban turned into a self-proclaimed state as soon as it
entered the presidential palace, and the leadership immediately announced that
it had changed its brutal rule of the 1990s in a desperate attempt to obtain
recognition and foreign aid. However, it is clear that some worrisome elements
are unlikely to change.
With regard to the Badri Battalion,
the report confirmed that on the outskirts of Kabul, hiding inside a
non-described kindergarten, there are Badri special forces in the shadows, and
these forces consist of two parts: those training to be special forces and
those training to be suicide bombers. The report noted that most Taliban
elements want to become martyrs, but the selection process is based on
prerequisites, as the Afghan movement no longer needs to keep its suicide
efforts and training schools hidden deep in the mountains or in pockets across
the Pakistani border.
The training process takes about two
months and focuses on intense religious belief to prepare them for the
afterlife and to ensure that they are able to accomplish the life-ending task.
Further physical training is conducted to understand the explosives and to
ensure that the quest is carried out in a timely manner undetected.
During the war, the movement claimed
that suicide attacks targeted the army only, but facts and figures prove
otherwise. Over the course of the war, dozens of Afghans and some Americans
were killed by suicide attacks everywhere, including outside the NATO
headquarters in Kabul, police stations, checkpoints, the Ministry of Defense,
and neighborhoods across the country.
Almost all armed Taliban units have
a wing of those willing and able to carry out the duty at any moment if the
need arises. The elusive Haqqani network is the most successful, having carried
out hundreds of such attacks against the US occupation. The US-designated
terrorist group now operates many key positions within the government,
including that of the powerful Minister of the Interior.
Bombings
Despite their use in war for
decades, suicide bombings are a surprisingly new tactic for the Taliban,
although particularly prevalent after the NATO withdrawal at the end of 2014.
The first attack of its kind on Afghan soil is believed to have taken place in
September 9, 2001.
On the Taliban front, the first
suicide bombing was carried out in 2003 after Osama bin Laden ordered his followers
to carry out terrorist operations in a videotape, which opened the door wide
for such attacks. Over the years, suicide operations intensified, and soon the
movement recorded the largest number of suicide bombings for any organization
worldwide.
As for the movement’s members
notorious for bombing operations, Sadeq Akif Muhajir, a member of the Taliban
and a spokesman for the Ministry of Prevention of Vice and Propagation of
Virtue, confirmed, “They will not blow themselves up on us; they are part of
the special forces. If any person or any country tries to move against our
interests, they will be used.”
While the Taliban once used this
tactic primarily against members of the now-defunct Afghan National Forces,
they are now seeking to use it against their rival organization, ISIS Khorasan,
as Muhajir was quoted as saying, “We provide them with all the equipment and
facilities used in developed countries. Earlier, we were training anywhere, but
since we took power, we have facilities that the previous government used.”
Observers stress that it remains to
be seen whether the Taliban will continue to use children as bombers, but all
arrows indicate that minors continue to be a mainstay of the military, noting
that although some Taliban forces, such as the Badri Battalion, insist that the
perpetrators of bomb attacks usually be over the age of 20, many of the suicide
missions have been undertaken by minors.
Afghanistan's streets are now filled
with Taliban soldiers who are no longer confined to rugged mountains or remote
religious schools. They patrol freely in bustling markets, mosques, checkpoints
and restaurants. It is common for people to have no idea when they were born,
and if asked, they usually give a range of possible ages.
