Child soldiers square up to US tanks [View All]

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/23/wirq23.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/08/23/ixworld.html


Child soldiers square up to US tanks
(Filed: 23/08/2004)


Boys who would be martyrs talk to Toby Harnden at the Imam Ali Shrine, Najaf

Struggling to lift a Kalashnikov, a 12-year-old with the Mahdi army militia said he could do anything in battle except fly a helicopter.
"Last night I fired a rocket-propelled grenade against a tank," he said. "The Americans are weak. They fight for money and status and squeal like pigs when they die. But we will kill the unbelievers because faith is the most powerful weapon."

The boy called himself Moqtada, styled after the rebel cleric whose ranks he joined a month ago having travelled to Najaf from the Shia slum of Sadr City in Baghdad. He said that he hopes for a glorious death. There are many more child soldiers in the narrow alleyways of the old city that surrounds the 11th-century Imam Ali shrine, its golden dome marking the mausoleum of Shia Islam's martyred founder and son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed.

US armoured vehicles were seen yesterday within 400 yards of the shrine. The American military appears to be moving closer and closer so that a swift all-out assault can be launched.


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