Bahraini terrorists caused severe injury to two small children after forcing them to carry explosives for them on 5 March.
This incident occurred in Al-Daih; exactly where three policemen were killed in an explosion just a couple of days before.
According to official reports, the two children; aged 10 and 11; were given the bomb by a group of older men and were given precise instructions of where to place it. We can presume that this was with the intention of killing police officers and passers-by.
However, the bomb exploded as the boys were carrying the device; causing serious injury to them both. They are now in hospital.
Separately; four people have been arrested for involvement in the 3 March attack that killed the four policemen and it is becoming clear that there was a determined attempt by militants to draw the maximum number of police officers into a specific area before the device was detonated.
Why children?
If there is one common factor in the tactics of opposition militants over the past three years, it is the ruthless exploitation of young children. We have written extensively about how children as young as eight and ten are radicalized and coerced into involvement in rioting activities; blocking roads, transporting Molotovs, burning tyres and throwing rocks at police.
This is not the first time youngsters have been injured carrying explosives and petrol bombs. A youth was killed just a few months ago carrying an explosive device. He was proclaimed a “martyr” by the opposition; but we can never be fully sure whether he was a radicalized teenager who knew what he was doing; or someone who had been fooled or forced into transporting a deadly device by others, with the intention of killing Bahrainis.
For these terrorists, there are several advantages for exploiting children in such a manner. A young child carrying a box may never be suspected by patrolling police officers. Even if they are apprehended; the children may not be able to reliably identify those who put them up to it.
Furthermore; when children are involved in violence and illegal activities, this creates a dilemma for the police as to how to deal with them while respecting the rights of the child. Inevitably, minors have been taken in to custody, and then opposition “human rights” groups are on hand to accuse the authorities of abusing their rights.
Finally, young children cannot be expected to fully understand the seriousness and consequences of involvement in such acts; so they can often be pressured by adults (sometimes parents or relatives) into doing things that others wouldn’t.
Religious struggle between good & evil
These are children who from an early age have often been brainwashed to believe that they are in a religious struggle between good and evil; where if they die as martyrs they will go straight to heaven.
By radicalizing children in this way, the opposition has created a monster for themselves and for Bahrain. We now have a generation of children who believe they have “nothing to lose” by fulfilling their sacred duty of revolution.
Now that the mainstream opposition are looking to re-engage in the National Dialogue process; there will come a point where they inevitably have to make compromises. However, how will they explain such compromises to this underage “revolutionary army” of their own creation?
If the opposition at least achieves some of their wishes and there are changes to the electoral boundaries of specific constituencies; or changes to the procedures for selecting government ministers: These are not concepts that such brainwashed foot soldiers can comprehend.
Prisoners of their own rhetoric
The opposition have made themselves prisoners of their own rhetoric by politicizing and radicalizing a generation of young people who should never have been involved in their political dispute in the first place, and who have no understanding of the issues at stake.
Going back to these two children who were hospitalized by the bomb they were forced into carrying: We cannot yet know whether they were even told what they were carrying or whether they were given a choice; but we can be certain that these children had no real comprehension of what they were being involved in: A calculated terrorist operation with the aim of murdering innocent people in the pursuit of political aims.
Opposition Groups like Al-Wefaq Islamic society have publically distanced themselves from those using terrorist methods. However, all are complicit to different degrees in this systematic abuse of the rights of thousands of young people, not of a sufficient age to decide for themselves what their political beliefs are, or to make ethical judgments about whether to involve themselves in dangerous criminal acts.