Dramatic footage has captured an ‘ISIS child suicide bomber aged 12 or 13’ being stripped of his explosive belt moments before it was about to be detonated.
The boy, who was wearing a Barcelona football shirt with FIFA World Player of the Year Lionel Messi on the back, reportedly burst into tears as he was detained by Iraqi police in the city of Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, Sunday.
Watch the video:
His arrest came less than 24 hours after another child suicide bomber killed at least 51 people and injured 100 more at a wedding party in Turkey.
It has led to fears children are increasingly being used by ISIS to carry out deadly attacks. Two other suicide bombers blew themselves up in Kirkuk on Sunday.
Three people were injured in one while in another there were no casualties.
The Kurdish media group Rudaw revealed that the apprehended suspect was stripped of his explosives belt by security forces before being led away.
‘There is a dangerous campaign tonight against Kirkuk,’ a security official told the network.
It has been claimed the boy was planning to blow himself up outside a Shia mosque. The belt was later detonated safely away from members of the public.
The attacks follow recent successful military offensives by Peshmerga forces against ISIS.
Earlier this year it was revealed that ISIS had released an app teaching the Arabic alphabet to its ‘cubs of the caliphate’ – using cartoon images of weaponry.
The terror group uses pictures of tanks, ammunition and swords to help children remember certain letters in its bizarre learning aid.
It is the latest move by ISIS aimed at indoctrinating children in its Iraq and Syria stronghold.
Videos have previously been released of boys – dubbed ‘Cubs of the Caliphate’ – being put through rigorous training regimes and even being ordered to carry out brutal executions.
Meanwhile, Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan said it was likely that ISIS was behind the attack which saw a bomber, thought to be aged between 12 and 14, blow up people dancing in the street at a party in the city of Gaziantep last night.
Erdogan added the blast near the Syria border ‘was the result of a suicide bomber who either detonated (the bomb) or others detonated it’.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, said in a statement that the wedding was for one of its members, and women and children had been among those killed.
Hundreds gathered for funerals this afternoon, with coffins draped in green flags. But security sources said some ceremonies will have to wait because many victims were blown to pieces and DNA tests would be needed to identify them.
Sourced from Daily Mail, Featured image courtesy: Reuters
