A 14-year-old boy has said he volunteered to become a suicide bomber for ISIS as he believed it was the only way to escape the extremist organisation.
Usaid Barho, from Syria, had no intent on injuring anyone after accepting the role and when he reached his target he simply unzipped his jacket showing the device to guards outside a mosque in Baghdad, according to the New York Times.
Incredibly, the guards were able to safely extract the bomb from Usaid – and captured the moment the device was removed on camera.
‘I raised my hand to be a suicide bomber,’ Usaid, who once dreamed of becoming a doctor, said. ‘If I were a fighter and tried to surrender to security forces they might kill me, with my gun in my hand.’
Usaid, who was told his mother would be raped by Shi’ite Muslims if he did not fight, said he was one of thousands of children who had been convinced to join the militant group.
He added: ‘They seduced us to join the caliphate. They planted the idea that Shi’ites are infidels and we had to kill them.’
