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Source: http://www.news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?id=387432003&tid=518
Iraqis Using Five-Year-Olds as Human Shields
(Scotsman-UK) - Jeanette Oldham Pro-Saddam militia in Basra are using children as young as five as human shields and threatening men with death if they do not fight for them, British troops revealed Tuesday. Sergeant David Baird, a tank commander, told the Sunday Telegraph that he had seen at least four or five children, aged between five and eight, being grabbed by the scruff of the neck and held by Iraqi fighters as they crossed a road in front of his tank. He said he was "sickened" by the tactic adopted by the Iraqis who moments earlier had been firing rocket-propelled grenades at him. Young Iraqi civilians fleeing the city told British forces how the ruling Baath Party militia has rounded up an entire generation of male residents and ordered them to fight. Anyone refusing is shot.