Primary weapon – suicide bomber!

M K DHAR 

The fact that suicide bombings are taking increasing toll of human lives in Iraq, Pakistan and Sri Lanka indicates it is becoming the primary weapon of the terrorists the world over. The weapon seems to be gaining some success too, largely because of the vacillating attitude of the military-strong democracies like USA. The weapon also depends on the repressive nature of the authoritarian and military regimes that trample human rights at the drop of the hat. 

Even though global terrorism has not lost steam, despite the international mobilization against it, it is increasingly taking recourse to suicide bombings to achieve its objectives.   This growing trend gets manifested worldwide and is not confined to a single religious group, though the number of Muslims involved is overwhelmingly large.   Suicide bombings are now responsible for the highest toll of innocent human lives, be it in Iraq, Pakistan or Sri Lanka.

The arrest by the Saudi Arabian police of some 172 Al Qaida militants with plane to carry out suicide attacks against public figures, oil facilities, refineries and military installations within and outside the Kingdom also proves growing reliance on this mode of violence.   The $32.4 million seized from them shows that despite steps, such as, freezing of accounts and assets, terrorists are still flush with funds.  Suicide bombers in Iraq protest against the US occupying forces and their collaborators in office, they target Saudi Arabia because it is pro-America and, in Pakistan, Sunni terrorists, backed by official agencies, feel encouraged to attack Shia mosques, religious gatherings and shopping areas.

The suicide "fidayeen" terrorists select as their targets states which are politically instable, un-democratic, or are going through various stages of virtual civil war, foreign military occupation or harbour sectarian bias.   The Palestinian suicide bombers are motivated by the mission to achieve their home-land, whereas the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are using suicide bombers to gain independence from the Sinhala majority in Sri Lanka.   Most of the attacks are directed against countries supporting US military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, or which provide military facilities to the US, such as, Pakistan .  The avowed aim is to bring about quick withdrawal of foreign forces from their homelands, or where state actors consider the presence of foreign troops a hindrance to establishing their sway over neighbouring countries.

One would expect military-strong democracies to break the back of global terrorism, in cooperation with other targeted democracies.   But, the manner in which the Democratic majority in the US Congress has passed legislation asking President Bush to withdraw American forces from Iraq according to a time-table, suggests it has lost the will to fight terrorism.   After having messed up Iraq, the US legislators are now trying to abandon it to greater chaos and anarchy, of which terrorists will be the principal beneficiaries.   President Bush might as well veto the Bill, but he has only half of his second term left and none can predict who his successor will be and his or her priorities.

Owing to half-hearted measures and application of double standards while trying to combat terrorism, this violent phenomenon has not so far been weakened.   Osama Bin Laden, Mulla Omar and similar others are as effective today as they were when 9/11 happened.  As Robert A Papa points out in his "Dying to Win".   The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, community support is essential to enable a suicide terrorist group to avoid detection, surveillance and elimination by security forces of the target society.   Given that recruitment needs oblige them to keep a relatively low profile, suicide terrorist groups cannot prevent many members of the local community from gaining basic information that could be useful to the enemy.   For instance, the identity of recruiters, common locations for recruitment, and even locations of frequently used safe houses, means of communication and other logistics.   As a result, without broad sympathy among the local population, suicide terrorist groups would be especially vulnerable to penetration, defection and information.   They must, therefore, ensure that the society as a whole would be willing to silence potential informants.   Everyone may know who the terrorists are, but no one must tell.

Though nationalism is a major cause, sectarianism also now plays a role in promoting suicide terrorism.   For Al Qaida and Hamas, fighting foreign military occupation is more central than religious motives.  If religious hostility were paramount, one would expect Hamas and Hezbollah both to attack the US and Israel.   However, each group, in fact, concentrates almost all of its effort against Israel and has not attacked the US or American citizens outside of Israel and Palestine.   Al Qaida's main effort has been against the US and its allies that have deployed troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and has rarely attacked Jewish targets elsewhere.   Fundamentalism appears to be the principal cause of suicide terrorism and this radical ideology is spreading through Muslim societies, dramatically increasing the prospect for a new, larger generation of anti-American terrorists in the future.   Therefore, the United States should install new and democratic governments in Muslim countries in order to transform and diminish the role of radical Islam in their societies.

It is pointed out that groups are emerging in troubled Muslim societies who have trained, indoctrinated and employed young men and women to carry out suicide bombings.   But this fringe element of Muslim societies should not be allowed to define the rest of Muslims, or to take their collective identity, interests and destiny in their hands.   While Muslims have a greater responsibility to understand the social, economic and political dynamics of suicide bombings and terrorism than others, Western countries mostly have contributed to their difficulties.   Failure to settle the Palestine issue or restrain Israel from expanding beyond its recognized boundaries and resorting to use of force against the Palestinians has been a major source of anger and frustration among the Muslims.   Some of their leaders argue that they have lost faith in the principles of justice, peace and fairness.  Some of them have resorted to reactive violence without much reflection or ability to understand the consequences of their strategy.

One must understand that violence is both a political statement and an instrument of political empowerment, Rasul Baksh Rais argues.   The conduct of violence, ethnic, as well as, religious, whether called sectarian terrorism or anything else, has a political purpose.  Those who engage in it have a well-defined strategy.   The first is resistance against militarily powerful states which have intervened to change a regime or occupy a land.  Some sections of divided societies have taken on the task of militant resistance, while others have extended cooperation to the intervening forces.   Afghanistan and Iraq fit into this example.  In the second category of objectives there are local contenders for power engaged in unforgiving reactive violence for ethnic and sectarian dominance.   The third emerging trend is directed at the unrepresentative, authoritarian governments which are oppressive and intolerant of political opposition.   The nature of politics in Muslim societies should be part of the larger picture in explaining violence and suicide terrorism as political weapons.

The sectarian component of suicide terrorism has grown considerably of late. The maximum number of civilian killings these days in Iraq and Pakistan are the result of sectarian suicide bombings.   In a report entitled "Suicide Bombings" an Enigma to Unravel, Akhtar Ali Syed points out that such bombings occur for four basic reasons:   psychological, socio-economic, political and religious.   However Pakistan is the only country where most of the suicide bombings (66 per cent) are based on sectarian hatred.   The rigid ideology of the Wahhabi school of thought which declared certain Islamic sects as infidels and issued decrees sanctioning their killing is a major causative factor.   Shias, Brelvi Sunnis and Ahmadias were the main targets of these elements.  Shia shrines and gatherings are being regularly targeted by suicide bombers, causing considerable loss of human lives.

There are significant habitations of Shia minority community in many cities and in the Northern Areas of Kashmir, along aggressive Deobandi seminaries training extremists, and there is a common thread linking suicide bombers to terrorism.   They are anti-Musharraf and anti-US because Pakistan has since long been an American military base and the US is fighting Al Qaida and Taliban in Afghanistan.   Being anti-Shia they belong to hardcore Sunni groups like the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.   The Arab link comes via Al Qaida. The Pushtun connection via the Taliban and the Punjab connection via the Islamic radicals – all have joined hands to wage war against the US, India and "infidels" and their puppets in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Curiously, Sunni extremists, who represent the majority in Iraq, have joined forces with Al Qaida to attack American forces, which have propped up a Shia-dominated Iraqi Government in Baghdad.   Since the Shias have a political alliance with the US, the Sunni-Al Qaida nexus has begun to attack Shias too.  The Sunni extremists have also turned anti-Iran because of its support to the Us-backed Shia government in Iraq, to Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon.   In this scenario of escalated suicide terrorism, authoritarian and military regimes without any popular support base have resorted to repression and denial of human and fundamental rights and of democracy.

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