An online video has emerged showing Iraqi soldiers disarming a young child in a Chelsea kit, who was found with a suicide bomb strapped around his waist.
The boy, thought to be about seven, was intercepted outside the war-torn Iraqi city of Mosul after hiding among families fleeing ISIS.
A soldier can be seen gently lifting up the child’s blue shirt, bearing the name of Chelsea star, Eden Hazard, to reveal what looks like an explosive belt fastened to his midriff.
In a tense two-minute clip, he then slowly snips wires and cuts away the device while telling the youngster: “Don’t be afraid”.
Video of the encounter was captured outside Mosul. A caption with the footage, released on LiveLeak, claims that the boy is the youngest ever child suicide bomber – however this has not been verified.
In the clip, a soldier can be seen crouching down next to the youngster and speaking to the camera.
He says the video is being filmed on March 18 and then explains that the child, who he says is about seven, was sent by ISIS.
The child, thought to be called Uday, says he was sent by “Amo”, which means uncle, with instructions to target “the army”.
The soldier then asks him to raise his arms. In the next few moments, the soldier slowly snips off bandages holding up the device, which appears to include a mobile phone and batteries.
When the child flinches, the soldier says: “Don’t be afraid”.
The harrowing video emerged as Iraqi government forces attempted to evacuate civilians from Mosul’s ISIS-held Old City, on Tuesday, so that troops could clear the area, but militant snipers hampered the effort, Iraqi officers said.
They said the insurgents were also using civilians as human shields as government units edged towards the al-Nuri Mosque, the focus of recent fighting in the five-month-long campaign to crush Islamic State in the city that was once the de facto capital of their self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate.
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