Kabul , Afghanistan ( CNN ) -- Afghan police have intercepted 41 children whom insurgents were planning to use as suicide bombers , an Interior Ministry spokesman said Tuesday . Four suspected insurgents were about to smuggle the children across the mountains into Pakistan from eastern Kunar province on Friday , said Sediq Seddiqi , the spokesman . `` We strongly believe that the children were being taken to Pakistan to be trained , brainwashed and sent back as Afghan enemies , '' Seddiqi said . The children are aged between 6 and 11 , he said . Police handed the children back to their families after they were rescued in the Watapur district of Kunar province , he said . `` The insurgents cheat poor and ordinary Afghans and take away their children , '' Seddiqi said . Afghan and foreign forces have arrested many would-be suicide bomber children in the past . Earlier this month Afghan forces rearrested two children in Kandahar province on suspicion of planning to be suicide bombers . The two were from a group of would-be suicide bombers who were pardoned by President Hamid Karzai last summer , according to a press statement from the Kandahar governor 's office . They had gone to Quetta , Pakistan , to get more training before being sent back to Afghanistan for suicide attacks , the statement said .
Four suspected terrorists were trying to smuggle 41 children abroad , officials said . Police said the 41 children were going for suicide - bomber training . They have been returned to their families , the Home Ministry says . It 's not the first time police have caught children trying to be suicide bombers .