PESHAWAR, Pakistan - One morning in late
August, a group of about 15 men from the Hizbul
Mujahideen jihadist group walked into Lal Faqir's
home to congratulate him for the "martyrdom" of
his son Bahar Ali, who, they said, had died after
ramming an explosives-laden car into a North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) vehicle in
Afghanistan.
"I am not repentant over what
my son has done. It's the easiest way to get the
blessings of God Almighty and enter paradise," Lal
Faqir told Inter Press Service, trying desperately
to hide the grief
at
having lost his 23-year-old son.
Ali, said
his father, was a calm person but religious to the
core. He first left his family two years ago to
take part in the jihad in Kashmir, a
Muslim-majority territory long disputed between
India and Pakistan.
"After about six
months he returned, but was off again before dawn
the next day - only once did we receive a call
from him, telling us that he was somewhere in
Afghanistan and was fine," he said.
It all
began three years ago when a group of mujahideen
(holy warriors) visited the local gymnasium that
Ali and his friends frequented and preached about
the need for jihad. Before long, Ali became one of
the hundreds of potential suicide bombers that the
commander of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, claimed to
have at his command, ready to go out and take on
the forces of the United States and its partners
in Afghanistan.
Just how deadly Mullah
Omar's cadres can be became apparent when a
suicide bombing killed the governor of
Afghanistan's eastern Paktia province, Hakim
Taniwal, and two others on Sunday and a second one
killed six more people at his funeral on Monday.
On September 8, a suicide bomber rammed a
car packed with explosives into a US military
convoy, killing 16 people in the sanitized center
of Kabul. The previous day, another coalition
convoy was targeted in Kandahar, but no casualties
were reported.
Many of Mullah Omar's
recruits come from places like Charsadda, which
lies 35 kilometers north of Peshawar. These
Pashtun villages are close to the porous Afghan
border, forming natural refuges for the Taliban as
well as launching pads for the resurgence that
they are now believed to be staging.
Bahar
Ali, said his lone close friend, Farooq Asmat,
developed an intense hatred for the US and its
allies, especially after the events following
September 11, 2001, when Muslims were demonized
and Afghanistan and Iraq attacked. "He would say
that he would lay down his life to seek revenge on
US forces for killing innocent Muslims," Asmat
said.
Ali was not the only suicide bomber
to target coalition troops in Afghanistan. On July
22, 23-year-old Aminullah blew himself up, along
with another suicide bomber, while slamming their
explosives-laden car into a coalition vehicle in
Kandahar, killing two Canadian soldiers and
injuring eight others.
The young man left
a note for his family: "Don't shed tears for me,
for this has been my life-long dream, to fight
jihad and embrace shahadat [martyrdom]. I
am going to a suicide bombing [mission] and I am
doing so on my own free will. You may not see my
body, grieve not. I have chosen it to be so."
Like Ali's, his family was told about his
death in the small hours of August 5 when a knock
at the door awakened them to a rude shock. For the
people of Aminullah's Shabqadar village, also 35km
north of Peshawar, the news came as a shock. "He
was not the type," said Karim, a cousin.
Son of a retired soldier from the Frontier
Corps, Aminullah had followed in his father's
footsteps and joined the paramilitary force. His
last posting was in Balakot, Mansehra district,
devastated by an earthquake last year. It is
unclear whether he deserted the force or resigned,
but his family said Aminullah had told them he had
quit about six months ago to join the Tablighee
Jamaat, a community of preachers.
His
cousin said Aminullah did not communicate with his
family until 15 days before he died, when he
called them from Quetta, the capital of
Balochistan province. "His sisters and mother
cried on the phone and begged him to return," his
cousin Karim recalled. "No one in the family knew
what he was up to. He had never consulted anyone
nor told any family member of his intentions,
otherwise we would have stopped him."
In
the note that was delivered to his family,
Aminullah wrote that he was embracing martyrdom.
"I have not been forced by anyone," he said. "Had
Allah given me one thousand lives, I would have
sacrificed it - a thousand times."
Curiously, neither Ali nor Aminullah went
to any of the madrassas (religious schools)
that are said to be the breeding ground for
religious warriors.
Security officials
warn that the numbers of would-be suicide bombers
waiting in the wings in Pakistan's restive
Waziristan tribal areas and the adjoining parts of
southern Afghanistan could run into the hundreds.
Mullah Omar's boast was not an idle one.
"The thrust of suicide-bomber training is
on religious indoctrination, motivating would-be
bombers to kill themselves for Allah," an official
said.
They are taught lessons in driving
vehicles and motorbikes and they are given
explosives-packed vests or explosives-laden
vehicles. "All they are required to do is to push
a button or pull a latch. It's as simple as that.
You don't need an academy to make suicide
bombers," the official said.
