REPORTER: John Martinkus

In the centre of Kabul, deep inside a government compound, sits this notorious prison. Inside, some of the country’s most dangerous insurgents are held and interrogated by the Afghan security service. Amongst the prisoners is a 14-year-old boy named Shakirullah. He’s facing a 20-year sentence for his involvement in a failed suicide bombing plot. The story he tells me is one of the most disturbing I’ve heard.

SHAKIRULLAH (Translation): I knew it was a suicide attack but I was told I wouldn’t be killed. I asked if I’d be killed but they said No, others would die but God would protect me.

REPORTER: Did you believe that?

SHAKIRULLAH (Translation): Yes, I was told that I wouldn’t be killed.

REPORTER: Did you accept that?

SHAKIRULLAH (Translation): Yes, I did.

Shakirullah was arrested four months ago and so far he hasn’t been allowed to see his parents.

REPORTER (Translation): Did they meet you?

SHAKIRULLAH (Translation): No, but they visited Khost twice. Then they stopped coming. Then they phoned to ask what happened. They also asked about my whereabouts.

REPORTER: And what did they say? Were they proud of you, were they happy?

SHAKIRULLAH (Translation): My mother was very sad and she was crying.

Shakirullah’s involvement in the bomb plot may not have been voluntary, but he was well aware of the terrible damage his explosives would have inflicted.

SONG (Translation): # Hey, you young martyr! Hey, you sacrificial lamb! #

This Taliban video shows a suicide bomb attack carried out in March this year, similar to the one Shakirullah was being groomed for.

SONG (Translation): # How fortunate are you to now be in Heaven! # May every drop of your blood bring significant returns for you. #

In the video, the attacker seems cheerful as he fills his truck with explosives and wires up the detonator. After farewelling his friend, he waves to the camera and drives off only to stop to mark a prayer time. Back on the road, he speeds towards the target - a government office next to a US base in eastern Afghanistan.

MAN: Allah Akbar!

The building collapses, killing two US soldiers and two Afghan soldiers. 15 US soldiers were wounded.

SHAKIRULLAH (Translation): I was studying religion for four months. I wanted to see my mum but I was told I couldn’t.

Shakirullah was first approached to take part in an attack while he was studying in Pakistan’s lawless province of South Waziristan. The leaders of his religious boarding school singled him out for a special mission.

SHAKIRULLAH (Translation): I was told to go to Afghanistan to attack the infidels. I was asked if I’d rather carry out an attack or study. I said, 'I’m not taking part in an attack.' But I was told that I must go. I must carry out an attack and then I could return. My mother didn’t know they’d asked me to do a suicide attack. I was told that I wouldn’t be killed in the attack and that I could then go back to see my mum.

REPORTER: So how did you agree? Why did you agree to come?

SHAKIRULLAH (Translation): I didn’t agree, they forced me to, they also beat me up. Yes, they beat me very badly, more than words can say. Again I was told it was my duty to carry out the attack as I hadn’t yet finished my religious studies. They just kept saying it was my duty.

Shakirullah says he was driven across the border to the Afghanistan city of Khost.

SHAKIRULLAH (Translation): To start with, they didn’t tell me anything despite us being together at the mosque until late. I was then told that I’d be taught how to drive.

REPORTER (Translation): Taught what?

SHAKIRULLAH (Translation): To drive a car. I was given a car for a few days to learn how to drive.

The Toyota Corolla he was being taught to drive was to be fitted with a bomb.

SHAKIRULLAH (Translation): I think they intended to control the button. I asked what I had to do. They said they’d tell me later."

But Shakirullah’s training came to nothing. He was arrested, along with his handlers, just three days after arriving in Afghanistan.

BRIGADIER GENERAL CARLOS BRANCO, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ASSISTANCE FORCE: They want to show they are capable to disrupt the Government. But they also attack humanitarian aid workers and they kill teachers, they destroy schools.

Brigadier General Carlos Branco is the official spokesman for the NATO-led mission that’s trying to secure Afghanistan.

BRIGADIER GENERAL CARLOS BRANCO: If you pay attention, the spectacular attacks are carried out in Kabul. In Kabul, you have the international media. You have the multiplier effect you want to achieve.

ANNOUNCER (Translation): President Karzai took part in a short parade after which he took his place among other dignitaries for the ceremony.

That multiplier effect was present in April this year. The entire Afghan press corp had turned out to watch the Victory Day parade in Kabul, but instead were treated to a display of Taliban firepower. Four gunmen attacked and the event turned into an embarrassing scramble for safety. President Karzai escaped unharmed and the gunmen were quickly killed by security forces. But by then, the Taliban’s aims had been achieved. The assembled media made sure that these chaotic scenes were seen on televisions around the world.
That attack followed a brazen assault on Kabul’s most prestigious hotel, just three months earlier. Three men dressed in police uniforms tried to enter the luxury Serena hotel complex. Two blew themselves up to get past security - a third made it inside.

MAN (Translation): This is a picture from the Serena Hotel’s CCTV. The picture shows Salahuddin dressed in an Afghan police officer’s uniform. After killing people in the gym, he went towards the reception desk and continued firing his weapon.

SALAHUDDIN (Translation): This holy attack is being carried out in Allah’s name. We’re doing this voluntarily, fighting Allah’s cause.

This is Salahuddin in a video made by militants just before the attack in which he killed seven people. He was arrested soon afterwards and is now being held in the same prison as Shakirullah. Agents from the Afghan intelligence service, or NDS, tell me Salahuddin was sentenced to death several days ago. He has since attacked a guard and tried to steal his weapon.

REPORTER: Can he tell me what led him to come to Kabul?

SALAHUDDIN (Translation): Please, Mudir Saib, don’t make me do this."

REPORTER (Translation): It’s not that hard. Just say it.

SALAHUDDIN (Translation): I beg you, don’t make me do it. Just give your name and some more information.
Please, I beg you.

Shackled and heavily guarded, Salahuddin is clearly not in the mood to talk to me.

SALAHUDDIN (Translation): I swear, if you shot me now, I wouldn’t mind, but don’t make me talk.

REPORTER: Can he tell us where he comes from?

SALAHUDDIN (Translation): I apologise, my brother. I apologise to everyone.

One of the NDS officers later joked that if the cameras weren’t there, he would have beaten him to make him talk. It makes me wonder how, exactly, they enticed him to make this video confession shortly after he was arrested.

SALAHUDDIN (Translation): I was sent by Mullah Abdullah to the Taliban. We were given police officers’ uniforms. We also had Kalashnikovs and vests with us. We then executed an attack.

From the confession tape, it appears that Salahuddin - like young Shakirullah – was recruited by a mullah, or religious leader. It also appears that, like Shakirullah, he’s Pakistani.

SALAHUDDIN (Translation): My father’s name is Shabas Khan, I live in Pakistan. I’ve undertaken training in Waziristan.

MARK LAITY, NATO SPOKESMAN: I think certainly a majority are coming from the border areas. A lot of them are people who are effectively brain washed in madrassahs.

Mark Laity is NATO’s civilian spokesman, who monitors the pattern of attacks. He says that suicide bombers here aren’t like the educated, middle-class recruits seen elsewhere in the world.

MARK LAITY: Often if you get to them and you prevent them, you find out they are ignorant, ill-educated, poor, they didn’t really know what they were doing. They’ve basically been force-fed a lot of rubbish in a madrassah.

REPORTER: So if you could go back and speak to the mullah now after what has happened, what would you say to him?

SHAKIRULLAH (Translation): I’d say, “You told me that only infidels would be killed. You told me I wouldn’t die, but now I know I would have died too. Why did you say that only infidels would die?'

SAID SALEEM, NDS SPOKESMAN (Translation): I can inform you that a vehicle packed with high-grade explosives weighing approximately 200kg was stopped before entering the city of Mazar-e Sharif.

Sayid Saleem, the spokesman for the NDS, is announcing another arrest. Over the northern summer in Afghanistan, hardly a day goes by without an attempted attack somewhere in the country.

SAID SALEEM (Translation): The terrorist groups mostly recruit people between the ages of 14 and 20. They can easily manipulate that age group by using propaganda about the situation in Afghanistan. They give an extremely negative view of the situation here, as well as a very distorted view of Islam, enabling them to persuade the recruits to carry out their so-called duty - suicide attacks. That’s why they target that group of young individuals.

The NDS, like NATO, believe the perpetrators are mostly Pakistani. And Saleem won’t rule out the involvement of Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI.

REPORTER: Do you have evidence that Pakistan ISI intelligence is any way linked to this?

SAID SALEEM (Translation): The assertion that they are from Pakistan is fairly accurate, I believe.

At the Soviet-built police academy training of the expanded police force is in full swing. Later this year, responsibility for Kabul’s security is due to be handed back to the Afghans and NATO is hoping this will stop more attackers getting through.

MARK LAITY: The Afghans, the Afghan army, the police, the NDS, are way better than we are at spotting the person who stands out and one of the best protection against suicide bombings is to hand over as much of the security detail as you can to the Afghans because they spot strangers. They can spot the person behaving oddly in ways that we don’t.

But the lightly armed police make a prime targets for bombers. This officer survived a suicide bombing of a police bus on his way to the academy last year.

OFFICER (Translation): Yes, the senior officers were killed. Some of them lost their heads, some their feet. They were all in bad shape.

22 police were killed in that attack alone. Around the country, bombings have claimed the lives of hundreds of Afghan police and soldiers already this year. But despite the dangers, this officer is determined to make a difference.

OFFICER (Translation): Everyone will die one day but we won’t just sit at home until we lose our morale. We’ll carry on with our duties with pride and determination. This is our country, our soil.

While NATO insists the bombings are a sign of desperation, US commanders are alarmed by the big increase in attacks this year. More foreign soldiers died in June than in any month since the war began. That bombing campaign means more boys like Shakirullah will wind up as mere weapons in the Taliban’s arsenal.

REPORTER: So now that this has happened and you are here in jail. If they asked you to go to Afghanistan again, would you do it?

SHAKIRULLAH (Translation): No, I wouldn’t. I’d stay at home with my family. I’ve got brothers and sisters. Why would I do it again? Why should I go? I know now I would die - I don’t want to die.

REPORTER: Do you still want to kill infidels?

SHAKIRULLAH (Translation): No, why should anyone else die?

Reporter/Camera

JOHN MARTINKUS

Fixer

ALEEM AGHA

Editor

DAVID POTTS

Producer

AARON THOMAS

Original Music Composed by

VICKI HANSEN