Can you believe this? A young girl handed herself into a Helmand police station saying her brother had told her to carry out a suicide attack.

A young Afghani girl has been detained by border police in Helmand province after attempting a suicide bombing. She told police that her brother, a local Taliban commander, had ordered her to carry out the attack. Her age is estimated at between 8 and 10. She was found in a state of “shock and confusion.”

The girl, named Spozhmai, told police that her brother Zahir, a local Taliban commander, had convinced her to attack a police station. He had threatened her with allegations of “illicit relations” with the police. She refused to wade across a cold river to carry out the attack and was beaten by her father on her return. Scared, she ran away from home, and handed herself into the police the next day.

The Commander of border police in Lashkar Gah , Col. Hamidullah Sediqi, said: “She was forced by two Taliban commanders to wear the suicide vest and blow up the police base. “One of the commanders is her brother. As you can see, this innocent girl, she shouldn’t be doing this. No one and no religion allows her to do this.”

Fawzia Koof, an Afghani member of Parliament said “It’s the first time that we have had a girl so young who is motivated by her brother,” Koof said. “How can it [sic] be so brutal that he is not nice to his own sister?”