Smiling faces of the child suicide bombers

They emerged following the shocking news that a 17-year-old British schoolboy became the country's youngest ever suicide bomber at the weekend. 

Talha Asmal from West Yorkshire exploded the truck he was driving as part of an ISIS attack near an oil refinery in Iraq, killing 10 troops.

But he became the latest - and by no means youngest - child bomber who the terror group 'boasts' about on social media.

He and the other children are not forced into the doomed cars. The terrifying reality is many request to die this way because they are brainwashed into believing it is a 'great honour', a counter-terrorism expert told MailOnline.

'They make a big point of showing off about it too by sharing martyrdom pictures and showing videos of military training,' said Charlie Winter from the Quilliam thinktank.

'For someone who is completely committed to Islamic State ideology, a hardcore supporter of jihadism and the caliphate, killing themselves in a suicide operation is the greatest honour they can receive.

'That's why you see suicide bomber registers in territory controlled by Islamic State, where you actually have to apply for who gets to kill themselves.'

'It is abhorrent what is going on here but the people who are killing themselves are not being forced into it... They have often requested it.'

The same could have been the case for Aslam, who was pictured smiling and giving the one finger ISIS salute moments before he blew himself up.  

Asmal, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, was described by his former MP - a family friend - to have been a 'sweet-natured, friendly kid'.

Using suicide bombers to batter enemy locations is one of ISIS's favoured tactics and one they used to conquer the Iraqi city of Ramadi, 60 miles west of the capital Baghdad, in May.

A British fighter known only as Abu Musa Al-Britani was one of six drivers who detonated explosives on army positions on the eastern outskirts of the city - killing 10 police officers and wounding seven others.

Winter added: 'Suicide bombing is a great military tactic as well because it instills a lot of fear in the enemy and allows penetration of areas which would otherwise be impossible to penetrate. 

'It enables fortifications, checkpoints and heavy weaponry to be destroyed. When they pack a load of explosives into an American HUM-V, it does create a huge explosion. The amount that Islamic State uses them is far more than any other group in the past.'

But the tactic has been known to backfire and on at least one occasion in December 2014, a 14-year-old volunteered to carry out a fatal mission only hand himself in at the mosque he was supposed to blow up.

Usaid Barho says ISIS strapped a bomb to him and ordered him to blow himself up at a Shi'ite Mosque in Baghdad, Iraq.

But instead of killing himself and several others, he defied his orders by unzipping his bomb-laden jacket and getting out of the vehicle.

Tense footage shows an officer carefully removing the deadly equipment strapped to his body in front of stunned onlookers. 

(dailymail.co.uk)