A camp of Pakistani children is being brainwashed into a cult of misguided martyrdom, raising fears that they’re being trained as suicide bombers, officials said.
Hundreds of boys and girls remain holed up at a religious school complex in Islamabad, where militants are clashing with the government in a tense standoff.
One father, Luftullah Khan, a shopkeeper, desperate to rescue his two daughters, managed to get through to them on a cellphone.
Saima Khan, 10, told him she wants to die a martyr, and that the real glory is to sacrifice her life for Allah.
“I spoke to my daughter,” Khan said. “She said there was no food or water left. I tried to arrange a meeting, but she said, ‘We’re here; my dead body will be here. I will not leave my teachers.’ ”
Khan said his daughter had been in the school only eight weeks.
Government troops have surrounded the pro-Taliban Red Mosque complex, launching tear-gas strikes and gunfire, but have yet to storm the site.
Militant leaders, who divided the children along gender lines, said the clash has claimed the lives of 30 girls whose bodies were buried in a mass grave inside the mosque grounds.
The mosque’s firebrand leader, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, said the children are part of the struggle.
“The boys are the first line of defense, then the girls,” he said. “They have all sworn an oath on the Koran that they will fight to the death.”
For months the leaders of the Red Mosque have unleashed a campaign of fear in Islamabad, using their burqa-clad students as the shock troops of a moral crusade.
They raided massage parlors, tore down posters of women, kidnapped alleged brothel madams and video-shop owners and forced them to apologize for their “immorality” at televised press conferences.
Last week, Gen. Pervez Musharraf finally decided to clamp down and demonstrate that his government was prepared to confront the extremists.
“People hiding in the Red Mosque should come out; otherwise they will get killed,” Musharraf said. “Action will be taken against them if they don’t come out.”
Musharraf met with top security officials last night, prompting speculation that an assault was imminent.
There are fears among western leaders that Pakistan could implode into a bitter battle between secularists and hard-line religious groups, becoming another failed state where al Qaeda can thrive.
Last week, the confrontation finally turned violent as militant students threw stones and fired shots at soldiers, who retaliated with volleys of tear gas.
An officer was killed yesterday when he led commandos on a raid to blow up the compound’s 5-foot walls to help the women and children get out.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao said militants shot and wounded three students who tried to escape.
For one family, at least, there was a happy ending of sorts.
Khan, the father who had been pleading with his two daughters to leave, called them on their mobile phone and told them their mother was outside. She was ill and lay unconscious on the pavement, he said.
It was a lie, but it worked. The two girls quickly left the compound and found their waiting father in the crowd.
“I’m taking them back to our village,” Khan said. “They were Wready for martyrdom, and they’re very angry with me. I’m just happy I’ve got my daughters back, and sorry for those whose daughters are still in there.”
Saima, in a bitter, fanatical voice, said her father had cheated her of martyrdom.
“The teachers taught us about martyrdom and that it is a great achievement,” she said. “I could see the fighting was in front of me, and I could understand that we would die. I felt real anger about what my father did. He tricked me.” Sunday Times of London