Islamists In Mali Using Child Soldiers and Human Shields

The shameful use of child soldiers and civilians as human shields by Islamist extremists is taking place in Mali as they battle to take over the whole country. This, of course, makes it extremely difficult for French and Mali government soldiers to do their job: getting ridding of the cancer that is Islamism.

A Mali military source told AFP:

"These people (the Islamists) have two strategies: using the population as a shield and child soldiers as fighters," the military leader said on condition of anonymity.

He said this was the case in the small town of Diabaly, 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of the Malian capital, where Islamists clashed with French and Malian troops on Wednesday in the first ground offensive since France's operation was launched on January 10.

In Diabaly, the Islamists "are using the population as a shield, which is complicating matters for us. And they have only child soldiers," he said, as the battle raged to drive out the extremists.

The town was seized by insurgents led by Algerian Abou Zeid, one of the leaders of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

Human Rights Watch has condemned the use of children as soldiers.

On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch urged rebel groups to immediately release child soldiers within their ranks. The rights group said it had interviewed several witnesses reporting children as young as 12 taking part in the fighting.

"These Islamist groups have no business recruiting children into their ranks, much less putting them on the front line," said Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.

"These groups seem to be willfully putting scores of children directly in harm's way."

As if the Islamists care what happens to those children and innocent civilians, let alone what a Western human rights group thinks of what they're doing.