Teen stripped of suicide vest claims ISIS brainwashed him

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Child suicide bomber stripped of explosive in Iraq

John Huddy reports from Jerusalem

A 15-year-old Iraqi boy caught by police moments before he could blow himself up last August is now speaking out, claiming the Islamic State terror group had brainwashed him.

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The boy said an older teenager ordered him to carry out the attack at a football stadium in Kirkuk.

Iraqi security services remove suicide vest from boy (REUTERS/Ako Rasheed)

“I was hesitating. Dureed kept urging, ‘just walk into the middle of them and blow yourself up’, but there was something inside me that was resisting. I couldn’t do it,” the teen told The Times.

He went onto say, “I felt a bit relieved, but also confused.  I didn’t know what to do anymore.”

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While under the guise of ISIS, the boy said the terrorists gave him a new name and put him through months of brainwashing and indoctrination. “No one ever called me by my real name again.”

Iraqi security detains teenage suicide bomber (REUTERS/Ako Rasheed)

The group controls an army of child soldiers, which it calls "cubs of the caliphate," and seeks to re-educate children at ISIS-run schools, drugging some of them, exposing children to violent acts, including beheadings in an effort to create a young army of suicide bombers.

The photos from August showed the boy in tears as police restrained him and cut off his suicide vest.

ISIS has a track record of using children in their terrorist attacks. Just before the incident in Kirkuk, a teenage bomber blew up a wedding in Turkey killing at least 54 people.

In addition, a gruesome attack at a Baghdad soccer game last March killed 29 people and wounded 60, with many of the victims children, officials said. The bomber was believed to be a teenager.