Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Obama Department of Defense detailing a deliberate campaign by al-Qaida and other extremist groups to recruit juveniles and launch terrorist attacks against children. The records consist of two Joint Task Force Intelligence Information Reports from debriefs of detainees at the U.S. terrorist detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Among the highlights of the records obtained pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request originally filed by Judicial Watch on August 26, 2005, with the Defense Intelligence Agency:

• Extremist groups in Saudi Arabia and Yemen used religion as the main mechanism for recruiting juveniles. Extremist groups preferred juveniles who were poor or involved in illegal activities since they made easy targets for recruitment.
• Extremist groups are not looking for a particular characteristic in a recruit, but prefer juveniles who are poor or are involved in drinking and drugs. The juveniles are looking for happiness and fulfillment in their lives, and they have not found it. For these reasons they are susceptible to being brainwashed by extremist groups.
• No juvenile has resisted taking part in an operation. Most juveniles are eager to participate after hearing a religious speech given by one of the trainers at the camp.
• The Terrorist and Extremist Groups (TEGS) justify their attacks on young children (ages 5 through 17) by claiming that the children are either non-believers or children of non-believers. The attacks on children are deliberate actions.
• The attacks on children are psychological operations against non-believers to prevent them from organizing against the TEGS. The TEGS attack schools and buses to maximize psychological effect. Attacks against children in schools and buses are used because they are easy targets. The attacks are conducted to show non-believers how little the TEGS think of non-believers’ lives who are against Islam.
• The TEGS consider attacks on children legitimate. The TEGS believe the attacks on children are a religious good deed and attackers will go to heaven. The TEGS encourage their members to launch attacks on children.
• Juvenile females are recruited into the extremist groups, but not for operational purposes. The juvenile females become brides for extremist members.

The records note that “approximately 40% of al-Qaida members in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq are composed of juveniles under the age of 18.” Terrorists recruit juveniles at Koran study groups, soccer games, summer camps, trips to other cities and swimming pools. Some extremists with connections to law enforcement purposely target potential juvenile recruits for arrest and coercion while detained in jail.“These documents describe al-Qaida’s evil strategy: Target and recruit impressionable juveniles to carry out terrorist acts while purposely inflicting violence on children to strike fear in those who oppose them,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “We should be concerned that radical Islamists are using their religion to brainwash young people to commit terrorist acts and to justify the murder of innocent children. It should not have taken more than five years and two presidential administrations to force the release these documents. It is essential to telling the American people the truth about the strategies and tactics of Islamic extremists.”(In November, 2001, Suleiman Abu Ghaith, Senior Advisor to bin Laden and al-Qaida spokesman, said, “We have not reached parity with [America]. We have the right to kill four million Americans, two million of them children and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands.” [Emphasis added])The issue of Islamic terrorists attacking children made headlines on March 11 when a suspected Palestinian terrorist murdered five members of an Israeli family, including a three-month old infant, while they slept. According to The Boston Globe, “The Al-Qassam Brigades, a branch of Hamas, argued that the murder of Israeli settlers was permitted by international law. 4 A day later it changed its tune, insisted that ‘harming children is not part of Hamas’s policy,’ and suggested instead that the massacre might have been committed by Jews.”