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Suicide, just another way to fight in
Kashmir
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - As the October elections to the
Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) State Assembly draw near,
acts of violence by militant groups seeking to disrupt
the poll process are expected to increase. It is feared
that with security being beefed up across the state,
terrorist groups will prefer to opt for suicide missions
to strike at tightly-guarded targets.
The use of
suicide bombers to carry out attacks is a recent
phenomenon in Kashmir. The first suicide attack came in
August 1999, soon after Pakistan's humiliating pullback
from Kargil. Lashkar-e-Toiba fighters blew themselves up
while storming a Border Security Force post in Kupwara
district.
It appears that while Pakistani army
regulars pulled back from Indian territory at Kargil
under United States pressure to do so, the
Lashkar-e-Toiba fighters simply relocated from Kargil to
the Kashmir Valley. Soon after, they began their suicide
attacks.
Since then, it is estimated that about
50 suicide operations have taken place in Kashmir, 29 of
them in 2001. The use of suicide bombers signaled the
start of a new, deadly phase in the armed conflict in
Kashmir. Confronted by an enemy that would not run away,
but which opted for a head-on collision with no fear of
death, the Indian security forces were pushed on the
defensive, and they now have to contend with a living,
thinking bomb that can dodge and which refuses to be
de-fused.
Unlike their counterparts in the Sri
Lankan Tamil rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE), (See related article) who have used
suicide squads as "guided missiles" to target
individuals, the terrorist groups operating in Kashmir
have used suicide bombers to gain entry or to blast
their way into high-security government installations.
For instance, on October 1 last year a
Jaish-e-Mohammed suicide bomber rammed an
explosives-filled vehicle into the gate of the J&K
assembly building. The objective was to blow open the
gates to the complex so that a follow-up force could
enter. Four terrorists and about 34 bystanders were
killed in that operation.
While 85 percent of
the suicide attacks have been in the Kashmir Valley, the
suicide bombers have struck in the Jammu region and in
Delhi as well. On December 22 last year a suicide squad
of the Lashkar-e-Toiba attacked an army garrison
stationed inside the Red Fort in Delhi. (It is from the
ramparts of this fort that the Indian prime minister
hoists the national flag every year on Independence
Day.) The suicide attack on the Indian parliament on
December 13, also last year, was again the work of the
Lashkar-e-Toiba.
According to sources in Indian
intelligence, the profile of a suicide bomber in Kashmir
is male (so far, no women have participated in a suicide
attack) between 15-25 years of age, and from a deeply
religious background. Interestingly, less than 2 percent
of the suicide bombers are local Kashmiris. Most of them
are said to be Pakistanis and Afghans, and they are not
necessarily from the lower socio-economic strata.
On December 25 last year 24-year old Bilal
Mohammed blew himself up outside the army headquarters
in Srinagar. Bilal was a British Muslim based in the
central English city of Birmingham, a youth who
frequented nightclubs until he reportedly had a vision
of the Prophet Mohammed. He then joined the
Harkat-ul-Ansar in 1994, and later the Jaish-e-Mohammed
as a suicide bomber.
What prompts a young man to
strap explosives onto his body or to drive an
explosive-laden truck? Is it a sense of hopelessness? Is
he mentally unstable? Or has he been coerced?
On
April 19, 2000, 17-year-old Afaq Ahmed Shah, a local
Kashmiri, drove a car filled with explosives into the
gates of the heavily-guarded army headquarters in
Srinagar. Pieces of his body were found scattered over
100 meters from the blast site.
Afaq was known
to be a shy boy, hardly the angry/aggressive young man
out to fight the system. But he was deeply depressed at
having failed to clear his examinations twice. The
gloomy environment in Kashmir would have added to his
despair. Depressed and confused, he started spending
long hours in mosques and would come home late. Unknown
to his parents, he was being indoctrinated by militants,
who convinced him to attain martyrdom by becoming a
human bomb.
A leading Kashmiri psychiatrist has
said that indoctrination and not emotional instability
prompts youngsters to become suicide bombers. It is
martyrdom in the cause of Islam that drives these men to
offer their bodies as vehicles of destruction. A
Kashmiri sociologist points out that many Muslims see
participation in a jihad as a way to purify the soul. A
suicide bomber "stretches this to dramatic effect and
hopes for instant purification, almost at his will. It
is quick and glorious."
The promise of martyrdom
in the cause of Islam notwithstanding, the use of
suicide bombers is deeply controversial.
"The
Koran categorically forbids suicide in Surah an-Nisaa
[verse 29]," writes Muzamil Jaleel, the Srinagar
correspondent of the Indian Express. "However, in verse
75 of the same chapter it enjoins that fighting
oppression is commendable. Thus, those who favor
suicidal attacks prefer to call it a mission of
martyrdom and an effective tactic employed to fight
oppression."
Both the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the
Jaish-e-Mohammed refuse to refer to these human bombs as
suicide squads. The Lashkar-e-Toiba has named them
fidayeen (or those who make the supreme
sacrifice) while the Jaish refers to them as khudkush
shaheed dusta (or voluntary martyrs' squad).
In an article in Public Affairs Magazine, Abul
Bushra writes that Usama, a senior Lashkar leader,
described suicide as killing oneself in desperation
after one fails to achieve the goal that has been set.
But fidayeen action he described as "very noble"
and that a "fidayeen kills himself to achieve a
virtuous goal, that is, shahada't [martyrdom]."
However, in this regard, Jaleel writes, "In
April last year, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh
Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, declared that 'any act of self
killing or suicide is strictly forbidden in Islam';
consequently 'the one who blows himself up in the midst
of the enemies is also performing an act contrary to
Islamic teachings'. In fact, the grand mufti even said
suicide attackers 'should not be buried with Islamic
rituals and should not be buried alongside other
Muslims'."
But another reputed Egyptian
clergyman, Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, has said that
such attacks were "among the greatest forms of holy
struggle against oppression". He was even quoted as
saying that the ruling against suicide bombings was
issued by "people who are alien to Sharia [Islamic law]
and religion". Religious leaders in Kashmir have not
commented on the issue.
Terrorism experts say
that by focusing on the psychology and the mindset of
the suicide bomber, one is overlooking the fact that the
suicide bomber is not an individual actor in the drama.
As Christopher Langton and David Ucko point out in an
article "Suicide attacks – a tactical weapon system",
published by the International Institute for Strategic
Studies, a suicide attack "is often the result of a
collective strategic decision by an organization,
involving an extensive support structure dedicated to
recruitment, authorization and planning. Indeed, the
argument has been made that the suicide bomber should be
considered no more than a 'sentient missile' – a
convenient delivery option for the 'real' terrorists who
recruit for, plan and authorize the eventual attack."
How do Kashmiris perceive the use of human
bombs? No one this correspondent spoke to in Srinagar
last year wanted their children to join the suicide
squads. These included people who are deeply religious
and believe in jihad. Some praised the sacrifice made by
those who participated in suicide missions, but the idea
of a loved one blowing himself up, whatever the cause
and the rewards, was repugnant to all.
Except
perhaps to the terrorist leadership that orders a
fighter to do it or indoctrinates/applies pressure on an
individual to "volunteer". For the terrorist leaders,
the use of suicide bombers is just another means of
hitting the enemy, to inflict maximum damage on him at
minimum cost to the organization.
(©2002 Asia
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