BAGHDAD, 15 October 2004 — A few Iraqis have spotted them speeding toward death before they disintegrate in a bloody fireball. But little is known of Iraq’s suicide bombers except that the supply seems endless. Suicide bombers are the biggest security nightmare in Iraq, terrorizing the streets up to three times a week with huge explosions that have killed more than 1,000 people.
But Iraq’s interim government, struggling to stabilize the country before elections planned for January, still has few clues as to who they are. “Either they are foreigners so you don’t hear anything about them or they are Iraqis and their families just keep quiet out of fear of being arrested,” said Ghassan Al-Attiyah, executive director of the Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy.
Whether they are foreign militants inspired by Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda or Iraqis swept up in anti-US fury after the occupation, suicide bombers show no signs of letting up. Their gory ritual is simple and impossible to prevent. They just pack any car or truck with explosives, drive towards a building or a crowd and blow up, scattering flesh in every direction.
Iraq’s US-backed interim government has blamed mostly foreign fighters for suicide missions and car bombs. But the authorities have never delivered on promises to televise the scores of foreign fighters they say have been captured.
The only hard evidence has come from a video distributed by followers of Jordanian militant Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, described by the United States as a key ally of Al-Qaeda. Militants from countries including Tunisia, Jordan and Syria were filmed making pronouncements in the video just before their suicide bombing of “infidels”.
In the footage, they turn American convoys into flames, drive suicide speed boats towards an offshore oil platform and bomb the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. Only one Iraqi suicide bomber is mentioned in the video, credited with attacking a US convoy in central Baghdad.
Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for the most spectacular bombings. But it is still not clear how many Iraqis take part. Standing in pools of blood after suicide bombings, traumatized Iraqis often express disbelief that their countrymen would do such a thing.
A few have said they saw a heavily-bearded militant driving a car toward his death. They always describe the bomber as an outsider.
Suicide bombings were unknown under toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The suicide carnage began 14 months ago and now all Iraqis know the bombers can strike at any time. If there is one place where suicide bombings could have appeal, it is Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad that keeps producing some of Iraq’s most determined rebels despite almost daily US airstrikes.
In a rare case resembling the Palestinian practice, a Fallujah resident said his 20-year-old son had warned his family he would blow himself up outside at a US base. “He told us three months before the attack. He told his sister that when she hears about his martyrdom she should hand out chocolates to family and friends,” said the man, who asked to remain anonymous. “She handed out the chocolate two weeks ago.”
