December 13, 2007:
As al Qaeda
suffered greater and greater losses in Iraq, recruiting became a serious
problem. In desperation, leaders were ordered to recruit whoever they could.
This meant more women and more teenage males. Normally, al Qaeda does not like
to employ adolescents. They are too inexperienced and unreliable. That
combination gets everyone in trouble, and adult al Qaeda do not like to work
with kids. But earlier this year, al Qaeda found that fewer and fewer adults
were willing to join up. This was largely due to U.S. troops capturing several
key al Qaeda leaders, and lots of membership records. Too many al Qaeda members
were being arrested or killed, and recruiting became very difficult. So kids
were hired for a lot of simple jobs, like placing roadside bombs, or guard
duty. Turned out that these kids were more likely to run away, or just
surrender, if confronted with Iraqi or American troops. As a result of that,
nearly half the al Qaeda under arrest (950 of 2,000) are under 18. Only about
eight percent of the terrorists held by U.S. forces are al Qaeda. The rest
belong to various Iraqi militias or terror groups (most of them Sunni Arab.) Al
Qaeda is the most hated terror group, because of the heavy use of large suicide
bombs against civilians. And with this recruitment of children, who are easy to
interrogate, and convert to government supporters, the government now knows
more about what the terrorist organization is up to.