It is not new. Children and minors have been utilized for various crimes since long - bribery, selling drugs, sexual abuse etc and now increasingly for executing terror attacks mainly suicidal ones. Countries of the world - mainly developed and under developed nations - have set their feet on the rights of children, albeit almost all nations have signed international regulations on rights of children.

In Saudi Arabia, for example, children trafficked from third world countries are used as camel jockeys. Al-Qaida have been recruiting and training children for terror attacks. It initiated this trend. In the recent years, the Taliban too, have increasingly engaged children and teenagers in their group. Expressing concern on this, President Hamid Karzai has said the use of children and youths in terrorist attacks—who did not know the difference between right and wrong—was inhumane and against all Islamic principles. Recently in Paktika, according to reports, a 12-year-old child was used to carry suicide attack that killed 4 and injured 12. The intelligence directorate reported that it has arrested several youngsters at Torkham border who it said were sent to execute suicide attacks in Afghanistan. Taliban have denied this. But their denial is negated by the facts on the ground.

This is a very dangerous trend. Already the children in Afghanistan are suffering due to lack of security and poor economic condition, their use in crimes, specifically, terrorism would have horrifying prospects. Afghanistan's future is highly dependent on the children nurturing today. Attempts of militants to develop extremism among the children and youth may have far destructing outcomes for us. Such acts by Taliban further prove that they do not belong to religion of Islam, as Islam completely bans violence on children and their use in crimes.

The human rights organizations have kept quiet on the issue of children being used for terrorism. This act of Taliban needs to widely condemned and the people who have somehow positive ideas about Taliban should be made to realize that Taliban are terrorists and can be no one's friend.