PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Egyptian Weekly on Hizbullah's Armed Children's Militias
by over 2,000 served Saturday, Sep. 02, 2006 at 1:20 PM

More violations of the Geneva Convention in the Israeli- Lebanese War

>In its August 18, 2006 edition, the Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Yusuf featured
>an investigative article by Mirfat Al-Hakim titled "Hizbullah's Children's
>Militias." The article reveals that Hizbullah has recruited over 2,000
>children aged 10-15 to serve in armed militias, and that the
>Hizbullah-affiliat ed Mahdi Scouts youth organization is training them to
>become martyrs. The article is accompanied by a photo, which can be viewed
>in the HTML version of this Special Dispatch and at
>http://www.memri. org/images/ uploaded/ sd_127606_ 1.jpg .(1)
>
>The following are excerpts from the article:
>
>
>Hizbullah Recruits Children Barely 10 Years Old
>
>According to Roz Al-Yusuf, "Hizbullah has recruited over 2,000 innocent
>children aged 10-15 to form armed militias. Before the recent war with
>Israel, these children appeared only in the annual Jerusalem Day
>celebrations, and were referred to as the 'December 14 Units,' but today
>they are called istishhadiyun ['martyrs']. ..
>
>"Hizbullah has customarily recruited youths and children and trained them
>to fight from a very early age. These are children barely 10 years old, who
>wear camouflage uniforms, cover their faces with black [camouflage] paint,
>swear to wage jihad, and join the Mahdi Scouts [youth organization] ...
>
>"The children are selected by Hizbullah recruitment [officers] based on one
>criterion only: They must be willing to become martyrs."
>
>
>The Children Train to Become Martyrs
>
>"The children are educated from an early age to become martyrs in their
>youth, like their fathers, and their training is carried out by the Mahdi
>Scouts youth organization. .. [This organization] , which is affiliated with
>Hizbullah, teaches the children the basic principles of Shi'ite ideology
>and of Hizbullah's ideology... The first lesson that the children are
>taught by Hizbullah is 'The Disappearance of Israel,' and it is always an
>important part of the [training] program...
>
>"The Mahdi Scouts organization was founded in Lebanon on May 5, 1985...
>According to the organization' s website, the number of [scouts] who had
>undergone training by the end of 2004 was 1,491, and the number of scout
>groups which had joined [the organization] was 449, with a membership of
>41,960. According to the organization' s most recent statistics, since 2004,
>120 of its members have been ready to become martyrs.
>
>"The organization' s goal is to train an exemplary generation of Muslims
>based on the [principle of] 'the rule of the jurisprudent' [a founding
>principle of the Islamic Revolution in Iran], and to prepare for the coming
>of the Imam Mahdi [the Shi'ite messiah]. Its members, including the
>children, undertake to obey their commanders, to bring honor to the
>[Muslim] nation, and to prepare themselves for helping the Mahdi [when he
>comes]."
>
>
>"A Nation With Child-Martyrs Will Be Victorious"
>
>According to the article, Na'im Qasim, deputy to Hizbullah
>Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, said in an interview on Radio Canada:
>"A nation with child-martyrs will be victorious, no matter what
>difficulties lie in its path. Israel cannot conquer us or violate our
>territories, because we have martyr sons who will purge the land of the
>Zionist filth... This will be done through the blood of the martyrs, until
>we eventually achieve our goals."