Video shows Syrian father convincing daughters to go on suicide missions - report

The girls and their mother in a screenshot from one of the two videos posted online. PHOTO: THE INDEPENDENT

LONDON - A video being shared online is said to show a Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS) fighter in Syria convincing his two young daughters to take part in suicide missions.

One of the girls is thought to be the seven-year-old behind the suicide bombing of a police station in Damascus on Dec 16 which killed the child and wounded three police officers. The girl was carrying a belt of explosives which may have been detonated remotely.

The link, however, cannot be verified, according to a report in Britain's Independent.

In two videos, Abu Nimr, a well known JFS rebel, films his wife saying goodbye to eight-year-old Fatimah and seven-year-old Islam, says the Independent.

"Why are you sending your daughters?" he asks from behind the camera. "One is seven and the other is eight, they're young for jihad."

"No one is too young for jihad, because jihad is a duty for every Muslim," the woman replies, as the family praises god and the daughters hug and kiss their mother.

In the second video, the two girls themselves say they will take part in suicide operations in Damascus.

"Why don't you leave this to the men? The men who escaped on the green buses?"

The child, confused, says yes, before her father asks more questions, according to the Independent.

"You want to surrender so that you're raped and killed by the infidels? You want to kill them, no? We're a glorious religion, not a religion of humiliation, isn't that so darling?" Mr Nimr says.

"You won't be scared, because you're going to God, isn't that right?" he asks the younger girl.

The footage was shared widely online on Wednesday (Dec 21), says the Independent. It is not known where the videos of the family were filmed, but the mention of "green buses" suggests Aleppo, where regime buses have been transporting both rebels and civilians to neighbouring Idlib province after the fall of the city to government forces.

In October, the UN estimated there to be around 900 JFS fighters among the 8,000 rebels which had held onto the eastern part of the city for the last four years.

But the Syrian government has also bussed surrendering rebels out of besieged areas on several other occasions, including in the southern Damascus suburb of Daraya, which agreed to an amnesty in August.

Mr Nimr is originally from Barzeh, a northern suburb of the capital, said the Independent report.

Several commentators in Syria have speculated that one of the girls could have been behind an attack in Damascus station last Friday, in which a little girl wandered into a police station in al-Midan and asked for the toilet before she either detonated a bomb on her person or it was detonated remotely.

State media reported the child to have been about seven years of age.

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