Runaway 'suicide bombers' recount their harrowing ordeal at Taliban terror camps

Mingora (Pakistan), July 31 (ANI): The four teenage boys who were abducted by the Taliban to be trained as suicide bombers have revealed their harrowing experience during the captivity of the militants.

Security officials presented the boys before the media where they revealed the atrocities that were meted out to them by the extremists.

They said the Taliban had kidnapped them from their village and took them to different training camps situated in Mata to be turned into suicide bombers.

"They blind-folded me and told me that I would get training for suicide bombing.

The gunmen took me to the Fazal Banda camp where militants were training a large number of boys. They told us that security personnel were infidels and we should wage jihad against them. If our own families stopped us from joining jihad, we should target them as well," one of the boys said.

There are as many as 150 boys being trained in a camp situated in Chuparyal, said a boy who was kept there.

The boys recalled that the militants regularly threatened them and offered them little food to eat.

"They trained us and gave us little food. Three to four boys would get one chapati and some green tea. They warned us that anyone trying to escape would be slaughtered," The Dawn quoted one of the boys, as saying.

When asked how they managed to escape from the terror camps, one of the boys said: "On our fourth morning at the camp, we got up along with other Taliban for prayers. We went out of the barracks for ablution and ran away."

The boys complained that local people now called them terrorists and suicide bombers and harassed them. They also blamed the media and security forces of disturbing them.

"The security forces also don't let us live peacefully and call us every other day to be presented before the media," they said. (ANI)