"You're lucky you're so close and you're not dead"

Fadaei, 17, was arrested last year before he was able to detonate the explosives he’d transported in a Toyota from Kandahar to Kabul in order to kill Americans.

Advertisement

“The message my father left me when he became a martyr was that I should follow him,” Fadaei said, speaking in a matter-of-fact tone while sitting on a thin mattress in a small, dank room in Kabul’s government-run juvenile rehabilitation center.

“I regret my attack failed, but I gained by trying. I’ll decide about trying again after I’m out.”

Next to him sat Esmatullah Bilal, with a crew cut and an Abe Lincoln beard. He got caught with a 26-pound suicide vest shortly before a planned attack.

Bilal, who’s 17 too, doesn’t feel any remorse. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“I want to kill foreigners in Afghanistan,” he told a Western reporter, intensity emanating from his dark eyes. “If you live here, we’ll come after you and kill you. You’re lucky you’re so close and you’re not dead.”

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on HotAir Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement