Child Warriors

The subsection of Just War theory, Jus in Bello, describes a need for discrimination and proportionality. I will focus on discrimination, which is the need to discriminate from combatants and innocent civilians as far as who is justifiable to be killed. This poses an interesting question especially valid to combatants in Africa, is it morally justified to kill child warriors who were raised and taught to fight by manipulative adults? On one hand there is the literal interpretation of the ethical claim and, thus, these armed combatants with intent to harm other combatants are fair game. However, these children have been raised in a military environment and have known no other way of life, so ethics would not subject these children to be killed because they are simply a tool of the monstrosities occurring in warring nations. I personally believe in the second of the aforementioned interpretations, but cannot condemn a soldier if he kills a child with a gun pointed to his/her head or if a child is shooting at a soldier because that would become a matter of self-defense, which is of course morally justified.

I'm curious to what others think. Please post comments as to your beliefs on the matter.