Al-Qaeda Targets Children Through Video Games15 April 2013 , By Jemal Oumar, Source: MagharebiaNouakchott
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is changing its strategy to target children at an early age to lure them to its radical ideology.
To do this, the group is using new methods deemed to be more capable of attracting children's attention such as video games that include a clear strategy to show the group's ability to win wars against international forces.
On March 26th, telquel-online.com published a picture from a jihadist forum showing a video game designed by AQIM.
The game has a military aircraft carrying AQIM's black flag while hitting and destroying French aircraft in the Sahara where battles are raging against the terrorists in northern Mali.
The website said that the game, "Muslim Mali", displays the message "Congratulations, you have become martyrs!" in lieu of "Game Over" when a player loses all their lives.
Journalist Abi Ould Zidan visited Timbuktu while the radical groups were controlling it last year.
"Children usually represent significant numbers of recruits at training camps in Timbuktu," he told Magharebia.
Citing Ansar al-Din spokesperson Sanad Ould Bouamama, he added that the group justified the recruitment of children based on a certain religious interpretation of some hadiths.
However, the exploitation of children by jihadists did not surprise many after adolescents were recently arrested in Ifoghas Mountains.
In addition, a Mauritanian adolescent was killed in the In Amenas operation in southern Algeria. Later information about him showed that he joined al-Qaeda years before his death.
Since al-Qaeda was keen on exploiting all means of communication in order to attract the biggest possible number of sympathisers, it created an account on Twitter to post its statements and tweets.
The AQIM Twitter account on March 24th threatened to kill the French hostages it still held in order to inflame the feelings of hostages' families, AFP cited a website specialising in monitoring Islamist groups as saying.
"Although al-Qaeda usually uses the internet... to pass on its speech and express its opinions and positions, it is also certainly using social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter because it realises that children have a presence on these websites," Mauritanian researcher Bechir Ould Mohamed said.
"Families in Maghreb countries must be keen not to allow their children absolutely free access to social networking websites to prevent them from falling into the trap of the propaganda of jihadist groups," he added. "Most young members of jihadist groups joined when they were adolescents unaware of the risks."

Congratulations, you have just gotten 72 virgins ..
Brainwashed phools

na wa o, see how far these imbeciles could go just to cause destruction. This is exactly what the boko rams are doing in the.north . Catch them young i'll say and i pray God will use these weapons(children) against them.