Islamabad, Apr. 23: The Taliban is recruiting children and teenagers in Pakistan to transform them into suicide bombers to carry out deadly attacks across the country, in which scores of people have been killed in the recent past.

According to a report in the Daily Times, at least 5000 child suicide bombers aged between 10 to 17 years have been trained by the Taliban till now, and are waiting to strike at the orders of their masters.

Intelligence sources said hundreds of more children are undergoing brainwashing at several ‘suicide nurseries’ run by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

After the training period is over, most of these child suicide bombers are sent to Afghanistan to target the allied forces and Afghan security forces, while some of them are kept back in Pakistan for carrying out attacks like the one on a Shia mosque in the Chakwal district in which 26 persons were killed and over 50 persons were wounded.

The severity with which Mehsud is nurturing these teenagers can be gauged from the fact that when the authorities detained 15 year old Aitzaz Shah, from the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), he told the officials that he was deployed as the “backup bomber” for Benazir Bhutto’s assassination by Mehsud’s men.

Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007. (ANI)