Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday that eight children, trained by the Taliban to become suicide bombers, were released back to their families.
The children, the youngest of which is only seven years old, were reportedly arrested for either planned or attempted suicide attacks and have spent the past few months in detention centers.
“These are our children whom the Taliban deceived,” Karzai said as he presented the kids on national television, according to Reuters.
In recent months, suicide attacks and other assaults have been on the upswing in Afghanistan, ahead of a U.S.-led military withdrawal that will see all troops out of the country by the end of 2014.
According to NPR, many of the children who were detained by the government, have been brainwashed, but some appeared to have been tricked.
An 11-year-old said that he was told by Taliban militants to “just get close to a group of foreign soldiers and touch these two wires together,” the radio station reported. The militants told him that he would be able to survive the attack.
With the Afghan president’s pardon, one 15-year-old would-be bomber remained defiant. “There are still infidels in this land. With God’s help, I will continue to fight against them,” he said.
