THE WEAPONS NO ONE CAN STOP Afghanistan: 'Two feet and a
lot of skin'
By Philip Smucker
GURBUZ, Afghanistan - Government officials in this town in Khost province refer
to the cross-border operations simply as "Suicide, Inc", a sophisticated joint
venture between al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Young Arab, Pakistani and Afghan bombers strapped with increasingly potent
bombs aim for softer and softer civilian targets, both Afghan and Western. Just
in tiny Khost province
alone, which sits opposite the outlaw Pakistani city of Miram Shah, there have
been two dozen suicide bomb attacks in the past year. In one of the most recent
attacks, a suicide blast killed six civilians and injured 31 people in Khost
city.
The figure spiked late in the year because of a "peace deal" signed between
Pakistan's government and tribal elders of North Waziristan who are in league
with the Taliban and al-Qaeda,
according to Western diplomats and a just-released United Nations report.
After the deal, attacks went up by 50% in Khost and by 77% in neighboring
Paktika, according to the UN report, along with a near-tripling of such attacks
in 2006. Citing fresh transfers of bomb-making technology from the war in Iraq
to this remote South Asian frontier, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said
bombers and insurgents have been "emboldened by their strategic successes,
rather than disheartened by tactical failures".
A record number of 77 suicide attacks were recorded in the past six months, up
from 53 over the previous six months, with most directed against foreign
military convoys, "but civilians were increasingly targeted", Ban said.
"According to national and international security sources, the training camps
for these attacks are located outside Afghanistan," Ban said. "The
al-Qaeda-affiliated trainers in these facilities reportedly include Chechens
and Uzbeks, as well as Yemenis and other Arab nationals. Four of the 12
identified suicide bombers in January 2007 were not Afghans."
Taliban commanders have warned that they have more than 2,000 suicide bombers
ready to be launched ahead of their planned massive spring offensive.
In sunny Khost province, where the governor's guards stand at attention with
fresh flowers in their hair, the relatively new phenomenon of suicide bombing
has angered residents and altered shopping habits.
One local religious leader refers to the suiciders, who stream in from Pakistan
on foot, on bicycle and on motorcycles, as Osama bin Laden's "bastard
children". Locals say many of the bombers are war orphans raised in virulently
anti-American madrassas, or religious schools.
"They don't have a family, and so al-Qaeda and rogue elements in Pakistan's
intelligence agencies nurture them and instill in them wills of steel," said
Major Bismullah, a former intelligence official in Khost who now acts a police
chief on Khost's newly paved "suicide highway".
As elsewhere in the Islamic world, al-Qaeda is a facilitator of terror, rarely
the direct instigator. Bin Laden's experts corral anti-American sentiment
within disparate, home-grown Islamic groups and launch young men over the
mountains toward martyrdom. At least some of them are being pushed across the
border with a blessing from Egyptian Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's wizened
and bespectacled ideological lieutenant, says a senior Afghan intelligence
official in Kabul.
In Khost, three major mountain passes link Pashtun tribesmen across the
disputed Durand Line that separates Pakistan and Afghanistan. But there are
dozens of buzrao, or goat paths, which bombers can navigate unseen by
border guards. One lost bomber is known to have stopped to ask a group of small
children for directions to downtown Khost. At least two recent bombers arrived
at their target on bicycles.
"The other side of the border is heavily populated and there is a concentration
of extremist religious schools there," said Khost Governor Arsallah Jamal. "We
are an ideal target because they can simply walk into a booming metropolitan
area from Pakistan within hours."
More than 1,000 persons cross legally every day from Pakistan into Khost. Even
if the Afghans knew who the bombers were, they would be hard pressed to "catch
up to their Japanese motorcycles on our cheap Pakistani imitations", said Major
Bismullah, who travels to and from work with his two heavily armed sons. None
of the bombers entering Khost has been captured alive, a credit to their
well-crafted detonation devices that allow them to blow themselves up by
pressing a button - usually positioned on the arm or wrist.
"The only thing left of them after they are done is two feet and a lot of
skin," complained the major. "If we get a finger, we have to send it to Kabul
to analyze the prints."
American soldiers in the 82nd Airborne have been trained in advance of their
deployment to spot suicide bombers and deal with them accordingly, said
Lieutenant-Colonel Scott Custer, the unit's combat operations chief in Khost.
"We look for gestures in their eyes," Custer said, adding that it was not blind
luck when a young US sergeant spotted a bomber late last month disguised as a
surgeon at a dedication ceremony for the recently renovated Khost hospital.
"He spotted his nervousness and shouted for him to halt," said the colonel, who
witnessed the attack. The Afghans had time to scatter and the sergeant, later
rewarded for his bravery, tackled the bomber and shot him once through the leg
before retreating as several US officers riddled the bomber with machine-gun
bullets. In his death throes, the bomber was able to clasp his hands together
and detonate his explosives, causing only minor injuries to the tackler and
bystanders.
Afghan and US officials now believe that an accomplice had dropped the suicide
vest off in the hospital before the ceremony.
With the knowledge that it is rare to catch a bomber before he blows, the US
government in conjunction with Afghan authorities has launched a rewards
program for information leading to the arrest of bombers. The efforts have
provided mixed results. One villager, who said he had identified a bomber
before he exploded himself harmlessly on a hilltop, said he is still owed
US$9,000 for identifying the attacker and initiating a chase.
Governor Jamal also uses billboards, rewards and public rallies in an effort to
curtail the bombings. The billboards depict a bomber and warn that it is
Islamic sacrilege to kill oneself in such a manner. Suicide bombing as a tactic
of war was unheard of in the long Afghan jihad against Soviet aggression, when
residents in Khost prided themselves in shooting down helicopters and ambushing
foot patrols.
At a recent rally of tribal elders in the soccer stadium, the governor asked
the US military to back off from security detail as a way of showing that
Afghans are taking the lead in fighting the phenomenon.
Authorities in Pakistan, though, take the opposite tack.
In Waziristan, al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, mimicking similar martyrdom
celebrations in the West Bank and parts of the Arab world, throw lavish parties
for the families of the bombers, said Afghan intelligence officials.
But such morbid celebrations for the departed do not necessarily soothe the
hearts of relatives. A religious leader in Khost recounts the story of an
Afghan father in Waziristan. He had just sent his son off to a madrassa and
left to work in Saudi Arabia to support the family. When he returned, he asked
the mullah at the madrassa how his son had done in school. The mullah
said, "He has done so well that he has been sent to heaven." The father
collapsed and began to pull out his hair.
Philip Smucker is a commentator and journalist based in South Asia and
the Middle East. He is the author of Al-Qaeda's Great Escape: The
Military and the Media on Terror's Trail (2004).
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
according to Western diplomats and a just-released United Nations report.
