Others were taken by force in the night, when heavily armed figures slunk into villages, demanding money and recruits. Some were even sold by their parents for 25,000 rupees (£180), the going rate paid by the TTP for a healthy teenager

How to defuse a human bomb: Rescuing the Taliban's teenage recruits
The Guardian, 16 October 2010

In Pakistan, young boys are being recruited as suicide bombers by the Taliban. Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy visit a new school that offers these brainwashed children a different future

The boy comes into view on the CCTV footage for just a few seconds, long enough to see that he is very young and wearing something bulky under his shalwar kameez. He walks purposefully through a crowd of worshippers gathering at Data Darbar Sufi shrine in Lahore, and then the screen is filled with a flash, followed by a juddering cloud of smoke. The blast settles to reveal a soundless world of body parts, shoes and clothes. The teenage suicide bomber killed himself and 45 others, and maimed 175 more, in this blast on 2 July 2010 – a good result for the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) that trained him, and another tragedy for Pakistan.

Abida Begum, a mother of six, living hundreds of miles away in the Swat Valley, in Pakistan's north-west, recalled seeing the footage on TV in the village shop and feeling nauseous. Every time she heard of a suicide blast, she immediately thought of Attaullah, her 14-year-old son, who had gone missing in February on his way to school. She suspected he had been abducted by the TTP which had seized control of Swat in 2008, transforming this erstwhile idyll of trout streams and ski slopes into a wasps' nest of blood-letting and terror. Hundreds of young boys from Abida's village of Kabal and those surrounding it had disappeared, pressed into the TTP's ranks, leaving once boisterous alleys and cart tracks deserted after dusk. The Pakistani army had launched an offensive to drive out the TTP in April 2009 – and even claimed victory at the end of last year – but the militants' influence was being felt once more, with the bullet-ridden bodies of those who crossed them turning up in local fields.

Many boys went voluntarily, lured by the swagger of the long-haired Islamic fighters. Others were taken by force in the night, when heavily armed figures slunk into villages, demanding money and recruits. Some were even sold by their parents for 25,000 rupees (£180), the going rate paid by the TTP for a healthy teenager.

The families of the missing boys always feared the worst. News filtered back that most were destined to become human bombs. Rumours spread that if the army caught them, they were summarily executed, a story that gained credibility last month when a mobile phone clip emerged in Swat showing soldiers killing six young blindfolded men by firing squad. The army claimed the footage was faked by the TTP, but the human cost of the teen recruits was undeniable. For three years, a legion of these "dumb bombs", as the locals called them, had terrorised the country, claiming 3,500 lives in 200 attacks.

The night of the Lahore blast, Abida went to bed imagining Attaullah, a knockabout kid who had loved his English classes best, coerced into a nylon jacket packed with explosives and flesh-ripping ball bearings. Days later, she heard an extraordinary story from a neighbour, this woman's son had vanished, too, but after more than a year he had, miraculously, come home.

Recruited by the TTP, the boy confirmed he had been locked into a programme to produce martyrs. However, before he could be utilised, the army had busted his training camp. Rather than killing everyone in it, the soldiers had taken several boys to their base at Malakand Pass, 30 miles south-east of Kabal, putting them in a kind of reform school along with dozens more young, would-be suicide bombers. They were fed, clothed, taught English and allowed to play volleyball and cricket. Respected religious scholars patiently explained how killing civilians was wrong according to the Qur'an. Psychologists counselled them. Some were eventually allowed back home.