He is just 14, too young to have any facial hair but old enough to kill.
His name is Shakirullah and he's one of the youngest Taliban prisoners being held by Afghan intelligence.

We are given rare access to him by Afghan intelligence, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), at the interrogation cells in the capital, Kabul.

The agents ponder for some minutes over whether to bring him to us handcuffed and decide against it.

Shakirullah walks in with the awkward gait of a teenager, unsure of his audience or the reception he's going to get.

Two intelligence minders are in the room with us. We are not allowed to film them or identify them but they are well known to the young boy.

There are constant interjections from them as he stumbles and mumbles his way through his story.

He says he had been studying at a madrassa, a religious school, in Pakistan for about six months.

He is from the tribal region of south Waziristan and his family are farmers. This was his first experience of education.

"I was in the madrassa," he told Sky News.

"And after I'd been studying the Koran for some time, the mullah (religious teacher) came to me and told me it was time to go to Afghanistan and be a suicide bomber.

"I didn't want to do it but they told me I had to.

"They said I couldn't stay with them any more and if I didn't, they would take me by force."

He said he was taken to Miramshah on the Pakistan border and then three men smuggled him across and into Khost in eastern Afghanistan.

The night before he was due to carry out the attack in a busy market area in Khost, the men took him for driving lessons.

He said they were spotted by police as they were leaving and the explosives were found.

"They told me when I came back (after the attack), they would give me some money and find me a woman to marry but that I would come back and not die," the boy said with astonishing naivety.

"I just want to be free. I miss my mother."

A few miles away from the intelligence cells is another 14-year-old without a mother.

She is Noorya and her mother was killed by a suicide bomber as she went to work for the Ministry of Interior on one of the buses packed with Government employees.

Qandi Gul was a cook at the Government offices and the main breadwinner in her family.

Her wage supported her husband and her daughter and two sons.

She earned 2,300 Afghani per month (about £24) but it was enough to give the family a secure living.

"I miss my mother a lot," said Noorya. "When she was alive she wouldn't let me do any housework.

"She wanted me to study. She said you are the future of your country so you should keep your eyes on your books.

"As for the 14-year-old suicide bomber who has been caught, I feel sorry for him. He is just a child and only 14.

"He cannot have had a proper education so he was set on the wrong path. I just feel sorry for him," she said with a maturity beyond her years.

Her father Mohammed Raheem is a lot more bitter.

"There were no explosions in Taliban times," he said. "But only explosions in Mr Karzai's Government.

"There are no jobs in Afghanistan now. My sons have had to go to Iran to find work and our economic situation is very desperate now."


Sky News