Children are shown at a training camp in this video footage shot by the Taliban.

Nic Robertson
CNN

A top Taliban leader in Pakistan is buying and selling children for suicide bombings, Pakistani and U.S. officials said.

Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud has been increasingly using the children in attacks, the officials said. A video released by Pakistan's military shows the children training for the task.

In the video of a training camp, children can be seen going through exercises.

Mehsud has been selling the children, once trained, to other Taliban officials for $6,000 to $12,000, Pakistani military officials said.

Some of the children are as young as 11, the officials said.

"He has been admitting he holds a training center for young boys, for preparing them for suicide bombing. So he is on record saying all this, accepting these crimes," said Major General Akhtar Abbas, spokesman for the Pakistani army.

The young suicide bombers may be able to reach targets unnoticed, the military said.

"If he is approaching on foot, there is a possibility he will bypass security," Abbas said.

"In certain areas, there is a possibility in the population centers everyone can not be checked physically, so he can create havoc there."

Read more...

Residents sift through the rubble of a bombed school near Peshawar.

Editor's note: Two weeks ago in Pakistan a leading anti-Taliban cleric was killed by a suicide bomber. CNN's Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson visited his son at the school where his father was killed and found surprises in security and nuances in attitudes toward suicide bombers.

Nic Robertson
CNN Senior International Correspondent

I first realized something was wrong when the hand-held metal detector didn't make a sound.

There were three phones in my pocket, surely one of them should have triggered the guard's electronic wand to do something. Not a bleep, not even a twinkling LED.

It was all a little surreal. Here we were just feet from where a Taliban suicide bomber had blown himself up the week before killing the owner of the establishment and yet security was so lax his brother could have come in with a second pay load and no one would have been any the wiser until it went off.

The man the suicide bomber had come to kill was Mulana Safaraz Naeemi, the proprietor of the religious schools we were now entering.

Naeemi had built a vast network of religious schools, better known here as Madrassas, all across Pakistan. In Lahore alone he had more than 100, attended by as many as 100,000 young students. The one we were now visiting was the flagship, Jamia Naeemi.

As we moved inside, there arrayed around the open courtyard and in classrooms were his students, sitting on low benches at low tables rocking backwards and forwards memorizing the Quran. Apparently they'd taken a two-day break after he'd been killed and then gone back to their studies.

Keep reading

Authorities beefed up security of sensitive locations in Punjab province after a suicide attack.

Program Note: Watch Nic Robertson report on his trip to Pakistan and the growing refugee crisis on AC 360º 10 P.M. ET.

Nic Robertson
CNN Senior International Correspondent

Every time I come to Pakistan these days I see more security.

This time is no exception. On the road from the airport to my hotel I counted nearly a dozen police checkpoints. Two years ago, there were none.

Some police run thorough checks, look inside the trunk, under the hood, peer inside the back of the car, even open the window and ask if I'm OK - apparently concerned I might be an unwilling passenger, a kidnap victim being taken away. Other police posts are lax, waving traffic through with nothing more than a cursory glance.

It would be foolish to think these are an effective defense against a determined bomber. Indeed, the traffic jams caused by some stop and searches are themselves a target for attackers who seem as willing to murder civilians as they are soldiers, policemen and politicians.

The reality is, a simple knowledge of the back streets is enough to bypass most police barricades. And so it is for the wider military offensive. So vast are the areas the Taliban influence that pinning them down and boxing them in is nearly impossible.

The Taliban and their supporters have become so entrenched in the Pashtu speaking lands bordering Afghanistan and wrapping northwards around the capital Islamabad that no single or even multi-pronged military offensive is going to stop them quickly.

So it is no surprise to come back after an absence of about seven weeks to discover the Taliban have organized themselves in the wake of the government crackdown against their expansionist operations in Swat.

Keep reading...

Authorities beefed up security of sensitive locations in Punjab province after a suicide attack.

Nic Robertson
CNN Senior International Correspondent

Every time I come to Pakistan these days I see more security.

This time is no exception. On the road from the airport to my hotel I counted nearly a dozen police checkpoints. Two years ago, there were none.

Some police run thorough checks, look inside the trunk, under the hood, peer inside the back of the car, even open the window and ask if I'm OK - apparently concerned I might be an unwilling passenger, a kidnap victim being taken away. Other police posts are lax, waving traffic through with nothing more than a cursory glance.

It would be foolish to think these are an effective defense against a determined bomber. Indeed, the traffic jams caused by some stop and searches are themselves a target for attackers who seem as willing to murder civilians as they are soldiers, policemen and politicians.

Keep Reading...

Program Note: Tune in tonight for Nic Robertson's full report on AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

A Taliban spokesman gives an exclusive interview to CNN's Nic Robertson, saying U.S. troops will never win the war.

Program Note: Tune in tonight for Nic Robertson's full report on AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

CNN's Nic Robertson, left, talks to Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid at an undisclosed location.

Nic Robertson
Senior International Correspondent

He won't look me in the eye, won't engage in any small talk, and looks more ill at ease than I feel.

The man in front of me is Zabiullah Mujahid - one of two spokesmen for the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

He is around 30, maybe a little younger, bearded, but not heavily so. He is slight but not weak and close to my height - a little over six foot - and meeting him is a big deal.

I've never taken meetings with Taliban officials lightly, but the stakes are getting higher these days. They kidnap reporters and worse, and just before our interview they had announced a new offensive against U.S. and NATO troops.

Frankly just getting into this room had put my heart rate up a good few beats.

Keep Reading...

Nic Robertson
CNN International Correspondent

As good as the Catholic Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were in convincing their IRA colleagues it was time to put down their weapons a decade ago, they were never going to win over all the hard liners.

In the run up to the 1998 peace agreement between Northern Ireland, mostly protestant Unionists who favored keeping Northern Ireland part of Britain and the mostly Catholic Republicans who fought to unite the province's 6 counties with Ireland, Adams and McGuinness worked at leading a united IRA out of the battle.

They failed because some in the IRA believed their leadership was selling out to the British Government. Giving up on the fight before they had a united Ireland. So a minority split with the IRA leadership calling themselves the ‘Real IRA.'

Keep reading