ISLAMABAD - Pakistani forces have freed 200 children, aged between six and 13, who were being trained by the Pakistani Taliban to be suicide bombers.

The children - rescued from the Swat Valley, of which the military has wrested control from militants - had been brainwashed "in a way that, now, they even want to kill their parents", officials said.

They are said to be so thoroughly indoctrinated that they consider all outsiders to be infidels.

Recent reports have indicated that Pakistani Taliban chief BaitullahMehsud has been buying children by offering fat sums of money, to create an underage suicide corps.

These recruits offer various advantages to their commanders: They are easily influenced and less likely to be caught, so they would be more likely to reach their targets.

In some cases, the children are simply kidnapped.

Senior North-West Frontier Province Minister Bashir Bilour said that when some of the recently- freed children were returned to their parents, the latter were initially pleased.

But, a few days later, the parents went back with complaints that the boys were threatening to kill them.

"(The children) were told that the Pakistani Army has become an enemy of Islam, as it is fighting for Christians and Jews," said a senior official involved in the interrogation of potential suicide bombers who have been captured.

The security forces are keeping the would-be junior murderers in Mardan town, where they are to be mentally rehabilitated so that they can become normal citizens.

United States officials quoted by the Washington Times newspaper said earlier this month that Mehsud was paying US$7,000 (SGD10,000) to US$14,000 for each child recruit.

The actual price depended on how quickly a bomber was needed and how close the child is expected to get to the target, they said.

Mehsud is also said to be producing suicide bombers assembly- line style, so they can be sold or used in bartering with militants such as Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Omar.

The use of mini-murderers is "the grim reality of the Taliban Frankenstein that now threatens to overwhelm the Pakistani state", Mr Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution scholar who helmed a review of US-Pakistan- Afghanistan strategy, was quoted as saying by the Times.

--The Nation(Pakistan)/ANN