Meet 11-year-old boy Whose DreamIs to Kill the President of HisCountry (PHOTO)

Mohammed Afar, the
resident of Aleppo area in Syria is
11 years old. The modified
Kalashnikov assault rifle he carries
stretches to more than half of his
height.

Over the top of his faded yellow jacket
a Free Syrian Army (FSA) vest holds
three extra clips, each full with live
ammunition, and a walkie-talkie. An
FSA badge sits on one side and a
rendering of the Islamic Shahada, in
Arabic calligraphy, on the other.
He says he does not miss school or
want to stay at home with his mother
and two sisters.
"I want to stay as a fighter until Bashar
is killed," he says, referring to Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad.
The fighters surrounding him, all
claiming to be from Liwa al-Tawhid,
pass him a sniper rifle and offer to take
him to a frontline, so he can
demonstrate his shooting.
The father of the boy, Mohammed
Saleh Afar refers to his son as " great
shot" and "a little lion."
Over the course of its grinding 21-
month insurgency, Syria's children
have endured numerous abuses.
Caught-up in shelling, airstrikes, and
sniping, they have additionally been
subject to arbitrary arrest, torture and
rape, as reported by the United Nations
Commission of Inquiry on Syria in
August; which, additionally, noted "with
concern reports that children under 18
are fighting and performing auxiliary
roles for anti-Government armed
groups."
Both the Geneva Conventions and the
U.N. Convention on the Rights of
Children carry provisions that call for
not using combatants under the age of
15, while the International Criminal
Court's Rome Statute makes it a war
crime.
Mohammed quickly disengages his
magazine and presents it, before
skillfully reinserting it, but not
chambering a round. The older fighters
surrounding him - some of whom are
little more than boys themselves -
praise his speed and mirror his father's
earlier statements, calling him a "good
shot."
He says he admires the fighters from
Jabhat al-Nusra - composed of hardline
Islamists subscribing to Takfiri ideology
- and recently designated a foreign
terrorist organization by the United
States. Al-Nusra have proven effective
in battle, winning itself scores of
supporters.
Many of its fighters previously cut their
teeth on other frontlines of the global
jihad - notably Iraq and Afghanistan,
but also throughout Central Asia and
the Middle East.
The group's rise has imbued the
opposition with an unmistakable
Islamicist hue while raising fears of a
sectarian bloodbath in the event that
Assad falls: Syria is home to Sunni,
Alawite, Druze, Christians and Yazidi.
"They [Jabhat al-Nusra] know Islam and
Sharia. They know what it means to be
a Muslim," Mohammed
"When my father goes to the frontline,
he takes me with him," says
Mohammed. "He says to be careful and
we find a safe place to shoot from."
According to a November Human
Rights Watch report, some opposition
groups fighting in Syria "are using
children for combat and other military
purposes."
"Even when children volunteer to fight,
commanders have a responsibility to
protect them by turning them away,"
said its children's researcher, Priyanka
Motaparthy, in the report.
"Children are easily influenced by older
relatives and friends, but their
participation in armed hostilities places
them in grave danger of being killed,
permanently disabled, or severely
traumatized."
Yet Mohammed's father - his long and
graying beard styled in the fashion
favored by religiously conservative
Salafists - sees little wrong with his
son's participation.
"I put my trust in God," he says.
The other members of the unit agree.
The 11-year-old is kept safe, they
claim, and never taken to frontlines
that are too dangerous.
"There are other boys fighting too,"
Mohammed says. "Some, but not
much."
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