Al Qaeda allies running terror camps for tots on the Afghan-Pakistan border are using video of a boy “martyred” in combat to recruit jihadis. The apparently lifeless body of the child, an Uzbek boy younger than 11, is the focus of the grisly half-hour video by the Islamic Jihad Union - a radical Uzbek group practically indistinguishable from Osama Bin Laden’s network, according to U.S. officials."In a fierce battle in Waziristan between the soldiers of Allah and the friends of Satan, Abd al-Rahim was wounded by an arrow," says an Uzbek narrator, referring to a bullet or shrapnel. "They couldn't find doctors, and under these conditions it wasn't possible to treat his wound. So, our young mujahid, Abd al-Rahim, reached martyrdom," the narrator says as the camera pans over the dead boy's face shrouded in a white cloth.
The video was obtained from the terrorism research service SITE Intelligence Group. The ghastly film follows Abd al-Rahim and a dozen young boys in camouflage shirts and black headbands reading "There is no God but Allah" as they train with rocket-propelled grenades, pistols and Kalashnikov rifles.
The dead boy was "a translator between the native fighters and the mujahideen," the video says. Al Qaeda is littered with Uzbeks who marry into local Pashtun clans for protection. Many were slaughtered last year by their Pashtun hosts for abusing women, sources have said.
NATO and U.S. military officers told the Daily News itÂ’s rare to find juveniles on the battlefield. Last week, a boy in a suicide vest killed himself and two Afghan soldiers in Helmand province. In early June, NATO troops "caught two IED trigger persons who were later released due to their age, ten and under," said Army 1st Lt. Nathan Perry. In May, Pakistani troops raided a compound they claimed was used to train kids as young as nine for suicide bombings in Afghanistan. But a U.S. special operations document referred to the army raid as a "ruse."