Author: Christina Lamb
Publication: The Sunday Times
Date: June 14, 2009
URL: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6493664.ece
On his face is an angelic smile, in his pocket
a blood-stained 50-rupee note. Ishaq Khan, a 12-year-old schoolboy, was given
the money - equivalent to just 40p - to carry a bag to a spot in a busy bazaar
in Kohat, a town in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan.
As he walked away, the bag exploded, throwing
him to the ground with a shattered foot and leaving shoppers dead and wounded
all around him.
In a macabre new tactic, Taliban militants
have begun paying children to plant lethal bombs in Pakistani cities. Ishaq,
who comes from a poor family that barely survives on the money his father
earns from house-painting jobs, had been working at the Orakzai bus stop of
the city's main Terah Bazaar, earning a few rupees a day by helping people
to load lorries and buses.
Two weeks ago a man with a moustache but no
beard approached him and offered him the note to leave a blue plastic bag
in a crowded area between several shops.
"I was excited to get 50 rupees,"
said Ishaq. "That's more than I earn the whole week."
He picked up the bag and pocketed the money,
enjoying the feel of it as he thought about whether he might spend it on a
rare treat such as an ice-cold Coca-Cola, or take it home to his mother. The
bag was of plastic sacking of the type used to carry sugar, and was not heavy.
"I put it down, turned back and had not
walked 20 steps when there was a big blast and I was thrown," he said.
"I don't remember what happened then."
When he woke up he was in Kohat hospital with
the other victims of the blast. The 50-rupee note was still in his pocket,
covered in blood.
When he learnt that three people had been
killed and 23 injured he was horrified. "I never imagined it was a bomb,"
he said, his eyes filling with tears. "I move bags for people all day."
Doctors at the hospital say his left foot
has multiple fractures and the heel is completely crushed. Yesterday he had
the first in a number of operations needed it if he is to walk again. His
back is peppered with shrapnel from the bomb but his family has no money for
painkillers.
The hospital has run short of blood supplies
because of the bomb, so local medical students rallied round to donate some.
The Kohat bombing was one of a succession
of deadly attacks since the Pakistan military launched an offensive against
the Taliban in the Swat Valley region. The Taliban has vowed to carry out
bombings in Pakistani cities in retaliation. There have been at least 16 attacks
since the operation started in late April and more than 100 people have been
killed.
Most of the attacks have been in Lahore and
Peshawar. The latter city's only big hotel, the Pearl Continental, was blown
up on Tuesday. Militants fired on the hotel guards, drove a lorry laden with
half a ton of explosives up to the buildings and detonated it, killing 18
people, including two United Nations officials.
