Iraqi Teens Forced to Become Suicide Bombers

In a stunning development, it's been discovered these teenage boys were being trained by a Saudi. And all this time I thought the Saudis were our friends?

Six teenage boys who said they were being trained as suicide bombers were detained Monday in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi officials said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf told The Associated Press that the boys were between the ages of 14 and 16 and initial investigations show they were being trained by a Saudi militant who was killed in military operations.

The soldiers were acting on tips when they found the boys in the basement of an abandoned house that was being used by insurgent groups in the Sumar area in southeastern Mosul, deputy Interior Minister Kamal Ali Hussein said later at a press conference.

He said the boys had been recruited over the last month to carry out suicide bombings against Iraqi security forces in Mosul, although the specific targets had not been revealed to them.

The insurgents had threatened to kill the boys or their families if they refused to obey, Kamal said, adding that the group included the son of a female physician, the son of a college professor and four who belonged to families of poor vendors.

"They were trained how to carry out suicide attacks with explosive belts and a date was fixed for each one of them," he said.

Obviously these monsters are desperate now that violence has been rapidly decreasing and are left to recruiting children.

The U.S. military said Sunday that the number of attacks by militants in the last week dropped to a level not seen in Iraq since March 2004.

About 300 violent incidents were recorded in the seven-day period that ended Friday, down from a weekly high of nearly 1,600 in mid-June last year, according to a chart provided by the military.