KABUL - An eight-year-old Afghan girl was killed when a bag of explosives given to her by Taliban insurgents exploded as she approached a police outpost in southern Afghanistan, the government said on Sunday.
"The insurgents handed over a bag with a homemade bomb to an eight-year-old girl and asked her to take it to police forces," the Ministry of Interior said in a statement.
"As the girl was getting close to the police, it exploded and killed the girl."
There have been occasional cases of insurgents using female bombers -- or more commonly of fighters dressing as women in head-to-toe burqa coverings -- but the use of children had been almost unheard of until recently.
