U.S. says Al Qaeda videos show boys in mock attacks

By Michael Holden

Videos played to media showed about 20 boys, mostly under 11, wearing balaclavas and brandishing AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers almost as big as themselves.

Smith said the videos were meant to spread al Qaeda's message among the young rather than train the boys for missions.

Violence has fallen across Iraq, with attacks down 60 percent since last June, but Smith said al Qaeda was still the greatest threat to security in Iraq.

The boys were seen stopping a man on a bike and taking him hostage, forcing passengers from a car and holding guns to their heads, and practising assaults on houses as trainers shouted instructions.

Other seized pictures showed a young boy wearing a "suicide vest", while U.S. soldiers had also found a written proposal for a movie script about training children for warfare.

U.S. commanders say al Qaeda have been using different tactics recently as security clampdowns have hampered their ability to carry out large-scale bomb attacks.

Last week two women, said by the U.S. military and Iraqi officials to be mentally impaired and duped by al Qaeda, blew themselves up at popular pet markets, killing 99 people in the deadliest attack in Baghdad for nine months.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered a "decisive" push in northern Mosul to force al Qaeda fighters from their last urban stronghold in Iraq.

According to Moussawi's figures, 1,958 people were killed in Baghdad in January 2007 compared with 16 last month. However figures compiled by Reuters showed 27 civilians died violently in Baghdad in the last week of January 2008 alone.

The report found 46.1 percent of a sample of 110 Iraqis interviewed in Damascus said they could no longer afford to live in Syria while 14.1 percent cited improved security.