A 10-year-old Iraqi boy allegedly recruited by Al-Qaeda was about to blow himself in a suicide attack today just east of Fallujah when police spotted and arrested him, a senior officer said.
The incident occurred near a police checkpoint in Amariyat Al-Fallujah, a village 15 kilometres east of the former Sunni rebel bastion of Fallujah and due west of Baghdad, said Captain Anas al-Issawi.
“The 10-year-old boy had been used by Al-Qaeda in the past to place bombs,” Issawi said, adding that the child disappeared from his family home in Amariyat Al-Fallujah four days ago.
“Three men aboard a van drove him to the isolated village of Shitsher (75 kilometres west of Baghdad) to prepare him for the suicide operation,” the officer said, quoting the boy’s own testimony.