Dispatches

Pakistan's Taliban Generation (2009x10)

Air date: Mar 16, 2009

Award-winning Pakistani journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy investigates how the war on terror is creating a generation of child terrorists in her homeland - children prepared to kill both inside and outside Pakistan. Sharmeen investigates how the Taliban are recruiting increasingly younger fighters to their campaign. She meets a 14-year-old boy in her home city of Karachi who is desperate to become a suicide bomber. She then follows the elite unit of the anti-terror police squad - who warn that the Taliban are hiding out in the city's sprawling slums and recruiting children from small madrassas in deprived neighbourhoods. Sharmeen also interviews a Taliban commander responsible for child recruitment, who reveals that children as young as five are now being used by the Taliban.