DickHardman

A girl as young as eight was sent on a suicide bombing mission in Iraq today, it has been claimed.

The Iraqi army said that an officer had been killed when the girl, strapped with explosives, approached soldiers near Youssifiyah, south of the capital Baghdad.

An army spokesman said that the bomb she was carrying was detonated by remote control, killing a captain and injuring another four soldiers.

Authorities imposed a curfew in the area and US troops launched a search for those responsible.

The American military was unable to confirm that a child was involved in the attack.

Terrorists in Iraq have deployed children as unwitting bombers before, but rarely as young as eight years old.

They have also used psychiatric patients and people in wheelchairs on suicide missions.

However, most bombers are ideologically committed Islamists determined to rid Iraq of foreign forces and their allies in the new Iraqi government.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...g-mission.html