Insurgents kill anti-Taliban boy in Afghanistan

A 10-year-old Afghan boy who was declared a hero after fighting the Taliban has been shot dead by insurgents while on his way to school, officials said Wednesday.
Wasil Ahmad, who had fought the Taliban alongside his uncle on many occasions, was killed Monday near his home in Tirin Kot, the capital of the southern Uruzgan province, said deputy police chief Rahimullah Khan.
The 10-year-old boy had been a local celebrity of sorts, with widely circulated photographs on social media showing him holding an automatic weapon and wearing a uniform and helmet.
Ahmad’s uncle was a former Taliban commander who changed allegiance to the government and was appointed local police commander in Khas Uruzgan district, Khan said.
The use of child soldiers is illegal in Afghanistan, but the charity Child Soldiers International said both government forces and insurgents have been recruiting minors for years.
The organization’s policy and advocacy director Charu Lata Hogg told The Associated Press that the Afghan government, despite pledging to stop the recruitment and use of children by the Afghan security forces, was making “slow and tardy progress.”
“There is a lack of political will to address this issue, and while it’s within the framework of overall human rights violations, there is a specific commitment by the government to clean it up but sufficient measures are not being taken,” she said.
In a June 2015 report presented to the UN Security Council’s working group on children and armed conflict, the London-based charity said children were recruited by the Afghan National Police and the Afghan Local Police. It said the recruitment was mainly driven by poverty, but also filial duty, patriotism and honor.
The ALP, set up with US and British funding to provide security at a district level, has been widely criticized for a range of abuses, including extortion, as in many places it operates much like an independent militia. The government has been urged to disband the force but relies on it to supplement the over-stretched army and police.
The report said that in May of last year the charity found that half of national police checkpoints in Tirin Kot “were staffed with visibly younger officers,” who all acknowledged they were under 18 years old.

Source: Arab News