by Haleem

KABUL, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- Suicide bomb attacks often indiscriminately kill the people in the target area, whether they are military personnel or innocent civilians, including the attackers themselves. So the Taliban is now turning to Afghans teenagers to do the killing by promising they would go to paradise after they complete their ruthless mission.

But on Friday, the police caught up with one teenager before he could blow himself up in the northern Kunduz province.

"I was promised paradise in return for conducting a suicide attack. I am now repentant and I beg for forgiveness from government," Mohammad Nasir, 18, said in a video clip released by the police.

Before releasing the video clip, Kunduz Police Chief Abdul Sabour Nasrati presented the would-be suicide bomber to journalists but didn't allow him to talk to the media.

Nasrati said that acting on an intelligence tip, they arrested Nasir from a house in Kunduz City. Upon interrogation, Nasir admitted that he was instructed to conduct a suicide attack in a local branch of a Kabul bank.

Nasrati also said that secret operations are now underway to locate and capture three more suicide bombers who reportedly have been hiding in Kunduz City and adjoining areas.

The police chief said he can't furnish more details for security reason. But he added that Nasir's case would be referred to the judiciary after a police investigation.

Imam Sahib, Dasht-e-Archi and Chardara districts in Kunduz province have been the scene of Taliban suicide attacks for the past few years.

Nasir said he received military training, including how to conduct a suicide bomb attack, in Pakistan.

"My parents sent me to Pakistan a year ago to get religious education. I had studied religious subjects for eight months and after that the administrator of a madrassah sent me to another place where I underwent military training, including how to conduct a suicide attack," Nasir said in the clip.

Nasir said that after the completion of his military training, the school administrator provided him with cash, a faked identity card of Kabul bank and instructed him to commit suicide by detonating a bomb hidden in his waist inside the branch of Kabul bank in Kunduz City.

Nasir is not the first teenager who has been arrested for attempting to conduct a suicide attack in Afghanistan.

Two years ago, a father from the same district, Imam Sahib, handed over his would-be suicide bomber son to police in Kunduz City, asking the police to check his son's terrorist activities.

Children from poor and uneducated families have been lured by the Taliban and other militant groups into conducting suicide attacks, assuring them that if they die as martyrs they would go to paradise and enjoy a happy life thereafter for sure.

Two years ago in a similar incident, police in the neighboring Baghlan province captured a suicide bomber just minute before he detonated a bomb concealed in his waist.

During interrogation, the boy, who was only 17 and a carpenter, told the police that he wanted to go to paradise and enjoy a perpetual life after conducting the suicide attack. He lamented that the police had prevented him from becoming a martyr.

Two weeks ago, a teenager blew himself up in a school in Kabul, killing two, including himself, and injuring 20 others, mostly young students. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the deadly suicide bomb attack.