Al Qaeda Terrorists Kidnap and Torture Iraqi Boy

Just to show you what is at stake in the battle against Al Qaeda by not just foreign countries but elements in Iraq that battle it every day, here’s a truly shocking tale via CNN: of a boy who was kidnapped and brutally tortured by unfeeling terrorists:

Like many young boys, Khidir loves playing with toy cars and wants to be a policeman like his father when he grows up. But it was his father’s very job that caused the tiny child to suffer the unimaginable.

Khidir was just 6 years old when he was savagely ripped away from his family, kidnapped by al Qaeda operatives in Iraq.

“They beat me with a shovel, they pulled my teeth out with pliers, they would go like this and pull it,” said Khidir, now 8, demonstrating with his hands. “And they would make me work on the farm gathering carrots.”

What followed was even more horrific, an ordeal that would last for two years in captivity. Khidir and his father spoke to CNN recently, more than half a year after his rescue by Iraqi police.

“This is where they hammered a nail into my leg and then they pulled it out,” he says, lifting up his pant leg to show a tiny wound.
And here is the money quote that says it all:

He says his captors also pulled out each of his tiny fingernails, broke both his arms, and beat him repeatedly on the side of the head with a shovel. He still suffers chronic headaches. He remembers them laughing as they inflicted the pain.

“I would think about my mommy and daddy,” he replies, when asked how he managed to get through the agony.

His father Abdul Qader is a police offer who was asleep at the police station in Fallujah when the attack on his house was done. The report notes that due to assassinations of police officers, they don’t go home regularly. The attack was well planned: with terrorists climbing over a fence, asking for the policeman, yelling they came for his son. There were explosives that demolished the house, but the boy’s grandmother and 7 others had gotten out of the house before they went off. The terrified boy was pulled from his grandmother’s arms. And when he was reunited with his dad, the father was told to be careful when he hugged him since both arms had been broken.

This story says it all, there is no “lowering of the bar.” And it shows why the vast number of countries in the world and its leaders cannot walk away from this battle. One more CNN quote:

The father flips through old family photos — all they were able to salvage from their destroyed home — and notes some of the kidnappers are still at large. He still fears for his son’s safety, but says he won’t quit the police force.

“Never, never,” he says. “If I leave the police force, if others leave the force, who will protect us from the terrorists? We are the only ones.”

Go to the link to read it in its entirety.