Horror of suicide bomb boy
THESE are the extraordinary scenes as Iraqi forces strip a deadly suicide bomb belt from a young boy.
The skinny, fresh-faced youngster, believed to have been recruited by Islamic State, was held as he prepared to detonate the bomb.
Initially, he was wearing a Barcelona football shirt with the name of Fifa world player of the year Lionel Messi on the back.
But as the government forces moved to extinguish the threat, they removed his top and held his arms spread-eagled, with one policeman clasping each hand.
They then painstakingly cut the explosives belt free from his waist and placed it in the gutter before destroying it in a controlled explosion.
At one point the child, thought to be about 12, started crying and the drama came to an end as police rushed the boy away from the scene in Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, over the weekend.
Brigadier Chato Fadhil Humadi, of Iraqi intelligence, said the boy was from Islamic State-held Mosul but had been left homeless by fighting in the city.
“The boy claimed during interrogation that he had been kidnapped by masked men who put the explosives on him and sent him to the area,” he added.
Officials said he may even have been drugged before being put on his mission to blow up a Shia mosque.
The boy’s arrest came a day after another child suicide bomber killed at least 54 people and injured 100 others at a wedding party in Turkey. At least 22 victims of the attack in the south-east city of Gaziantep were said to be aged 14 or under.
President Tayyip Erdogan blamed Islamic State and said the bomber was aged between 12 and 14.
The brutal terror regime has in the past been brazen about indoctrinating children. They have posted film clips of boys dubbed “Cubs of the Caliphate” carrying out armed training exercises.