KABUL: A 10-year-old Afghan boy who was declared a hero after fighting the Taliban has been shot dead by militants while on his way to school, officials said on Wednesday.

Wasil Ahmad, who had fought the Taliban alongside his uncle on many occasions, was killed on Monday near his home in Tirin Kot, the capital of the southern Uruzgan province, said deputy police chief Rahimullah Khan.

The 10-year-old boy had been a local celebrity of sorts, with widely circulated photographs on social media showing him holding an automatic weapon and wearing a uniform and helmet.

His uncle was a former Taliban commander who changed allegiance to the government and was appointed local police commander in Khas Uruzgan district, Khan said.

The use of child soldiers is illegal in Afghanistan, but the charity Child Soldiers International said both government forces and militants have been recruiting minors for years. The organisation’s policy and advocacy director Charu Lata Hogg said the Afghan government, despite pledging to stop the recruitment and use of children by the Afghan security forces, was making “slow and tardy progress” on the issue.

“There is a lack of political will to address this issue, and while it’s within the framework of overall human rights violations, there is a specific commitment by the government to clean it up but sufficient measures are not being taken,” she said.

In a June 2015 report presented to the UN Security Council’s working group on children and armed conflict, the London-based charity said children were recruited by the Afghan National Police and the Afghan Local Police. It said the recruitment was mainly driven by poverty, but also filial duty, patriotism and honour.

The ALP, set up with the US and British funding to provide security at the district level, has been widely criticised for a range of abuses, including extortion. The government has been urged to disband the force but relies on it to supplement the over-stretched army and police. The report said that in May of last year the charity found that half of national police checkpoints in Tirin Kot “were staffed with visibly younger officers”, who acknowledged that they were under 18 years.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission laid blame for the boy’s death with his family, the government and the Taliban.

Spokesman Rafiullah Baidar said that local police had hailed the boy as a hero after he battled a Taliban siege following the death of his father in fighting. “Possibly he took up arms to take revenge for his father’s death, but it was illegal for the police to declare him a hero and reveal his identity, especially to the insurgents,” he said.

“One side made him famous and the other side killed him — both sides ignored the law and acted illegally,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2016