Via The Blaze:
Taliban extremists have kidnapped more than 100 children from Afghanistan and Pakistan in the last year to use for suicide missions against government officials and U.S. troops still fighting in the region, U.S. and Pakistani sources told TheBlaze.
It’s a resurgence of old tactics to indoctrinate child suicide bombers, and means suicide training in extremist schools are once again a threat to Western civilians and troops, a U.S. counterterrorism official said.
“Extremists in the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan are on their heels, but recruitment and radicalization in the region pose a long-term challenge,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the nature of their work. “Radical madrassas and other extremist training centers continue to prey on and poison young minds—in some cases encouraging violence against local and Western interests.”
The kidnappings and establishment of extremist madrassas, or religious schools, in Pakistan’s remote Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) signal a revival in the Taliban’s power base just as the U.S. is preparing to withdraw from the region next year.