AFGHAN-PAKISTAN: Al Qaeda's Boy Commandos: Children As Young As FIVE Show Off Their Horrifying Arsenal Of Weapons At Terror Training Camp

The Daily Mail UK

Al Qaeda's boy commandos: Children as young as FIVE show off their horrifying arsenal of weapons at terror training camp

written by Staff

Monday April 22, 2013

• Youngsters filmed using pistols, AK-47 assault rifles and machine guns
• Many are orphans of Al Qaeda's 'martyrs' who have died in terror attacks
• Drilled by Turkistan Islamic Party, which trains insurgents to fight alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan
• Group behind hundreds of ­terror atrocities worldwide in past 20 years

They are barely bigger than the assault rifles they grasp clumsily in their hands.

Yet these children are being trained to become the next generation of terrorists from the age of just five.

Sitting in long lines as if on a school outing, they struggle to lift deadly AK-47s as they are made to fire off a flurry of rounds, their tiny bodies getting knocked back by the recoil.

Others grapple with pistols as they are brainwashed into waging Jihad on the West and becoming suicide bombers.

The terrifying footage was taken from an Al Qaeda terror camp in north Waziristan, near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Many of the children are orphans of the terrorist organisation's 'martyrs' following the same deadly route as their fathers.

It was initially posted on an underground al Qaeda website and is believed to have been issued by the Turkistan Islamic Party, which trains insurgents to fight alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It is believed the armed group is responsible for hundreds of acts of ­terrorism worldwide in the past 20 years.

The Pakistani Taliban is one of many loosely allied extremist groups that operate in Pakistan's tribal region.

It wants to impose the same kind of hardline interpretation of Islamic law as the Afghan Taliban that ruled Afghanistan until the 2001 U.S.-led invasion ousted the hardline regime for sheltering al Qaeda's leaders.

The militant hideouts along the Afghan-Pakistan border have long been a source of tension for Kabul, Islamabad and the international coalition.

Pakistan wants NATO and Afghan forces to crack down on Pakistani militants launching attacks from hideouts on the Afghan side of the border.

Meanwhile, American military commanders have been pressuring Islamabad to launch military strikes on terrorists in North Waziristan.