Grave. That’s their stated mission — in both senses of the word. More to the point, a suicide bomber’s task is not a question of life and death it’s is: Do — and die. However, as the growing number of suicide bombers suggest, this is more than a mission to die for them. By all accounts, it is a mission to die for.
And, if recent reports are anything to go by, it is not only men who are clamoring to blow themselves up, the face of suicide bombers today is increasingly women.
While, in Iraq, women have carried out or attempted at least 20 suicide bombings since 2003, more than a dozen Palestinian women have launched suicide attacks in recent years. And Hamas is only too keen to welcome more women fighters in its ranks.
However, this phenomenon of women suicide bombers is not a recent one — the first known suicide attack by a woman was carried out in Lebanon on April 9, 1985, by Sana’a Mehaidli, a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, who detonated an explosive-laden vehicle killing two Israeli soldiers.
Nor is the phenomenon confined to the Middle East — Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam guerrillas are well-known for training women suicide bombers and, besides pioneering this technique, used to produce the largest number of suicide bombers in the world. In one of the best-known cases of suicide bombing Dhanu, a Sri Lankan separatist killed herself and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at an election rally in Sriperumbedur in south India on May 21, 1991.
To put it bluntly, it is one thing when men decide to take on the world, but quite another when women — life-givers — are pushed to the brink and turn life-takers.
The question then is: What is that it drives mothers and sisters to take this extreme step and breed children who are proud to blow themselves up?
But that’s not all. A recent report stated that even children have infiltrated the ranks of suicide bombers in Palestine and, apparently, there have been cases when infants too have been used in attacks.
The reasons for suicide bombing are often compelling. No wonder then that since the technique was perfected in the early 1980s, it has never been used to such deadly effect as it is being now. The Sept. 11 attacks shook the US in 2001 but its reverberations continue to be felt even today. Mostly in the Muslim world.
The suicide attacks on that fateful day was an act of terror. But did it justify what US President George W. Bush unleashed in its aftermath? His “War on Terror” arguably became an excuse to attack Afghanistan, leaving in its wake a trail of death and destruction.
A war that never succeeded to bring even its principal target to book. Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda, which masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks, were ensconced in the mountains of Afghanistan — and, by some accounts, they still continue to seek safe haven there — while the rest of the country was being mindlessly ravaged, bombed and devastated.
But as if one blunder was not enough, Bush rushed to another war — this time with Iraq. Based on false premises. As it turns out, Bush’s administration has yet to lay its hands on the weapons of mass destruction that it claimed Saddam Hussein had, yet to prove that the Iraqi dictator had any direct ties to the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks and yet to establish that Saddam was indeed an imminent danger.
While the “Bush lied, people died” catch phrase found on bumper stickers in America, there’s no denying that the administration’s prewar statements on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were mostly backed by available — but flawed — US intelligence. In fact, a recent 171-page Senate Intelligence Committee report goes as far as to say that assertions by Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that Saddam was prepared to arm terrorist groups to attack the US, in fact, contradicted available intelligence.
Of such baseless wars are suicide bombers born.
Today, Iraqis are blowing themselves up to kill US Marines, who refuse to leave their country long after toppling Saddam. According to one study, Arab media reports and Internet coverage of alleged US atrocities in Iraq — the Abu Ghraib scandal, in particular — was a “major factor” in pushing men and women on the street to take on the might of US soldiers.
Hardly surprising then that the data tracked by author Mohammed Hafez, a political science professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, noted that of the 1,800-odd suicide attacks worldwide till date, more than half have taken place in Iraq. Another report revealed that Palestinians came a close second.
Palestinians have long been fighting an uneven battle with Israel to claim a land that rightfully belongs to them. The continued US support for Israel, despite its occupation and suppression of Palestinians and the atrocities in Gaza, has upset many people who see new blockades going up instead of coming down. Truce is announced only to be recalled. Borders and blockades are opened only to be shut down. And the already scarce supply of fuel and essential commodities is cut off more often than it is restored. And all this for daring to stay in a land and demand what is theirs, by right.
Of such illegal occupations are suicide bombers born.
As for Afghanistan, the US bombs that rained on the country further divided a faction-ridden people, opened festering wounds and, despite the installation of Hamid Karzai at the helm, tore the already-tattered fabric of Kabul.
Of such unjustified attacks are suicide bombers born.
Indeed, no one wants to see defenseless men, women and children being mowed down by heat-seeking missiles and precision bombs fired from undisclosed destinations or carpet-bombed by invisible enemies from the skies. If truth be told, whether it is Gaza, Baghdad or Kabul, it is this sense of utter helplessness that drives people to use the only delivery weapon they have — their own bodies — and blow themselves up.
When a Palestinian was asked why they resort to suicide bombing, he stared straight back at the questioner and, without batting an eyelid, coolly said: “Provide us with Apache helicopters, F-16 planes, M-16 assault rifles and a couple of Abrams tanks — all of which are freely supplied by the US to Israel — and I promise you there will be no more suicide bombings.”
Like it or not, there is no denying it is an argument that is difficult to shrug off. If nothing else, it makes one think, tugs at heartstrings and calls for soul-searching.
“One of the problems in stopping (suicide bombing) attacks is the strong support for them among the population,” a Palestinian security official observed.
A Palestinian psychiatrist Iyad Al-Sarraj, cited in a Reuters report, explained that the humiliation of life under occupation was the key motive for suicide bombers. “It is no wonder that some people are doing it. We should wonder why everyone isn’t doing it,” Al-Sarraj added.
Whatever be the case, one thing is clear: Scores of men and women are willingly dying to be counted. And as long as they are convinced that their end justifies the means, we cannot afford to sleep peacefully.
