Suicide video gets Taliban message
across By Pascale Combelles
Siegel
This month, a Pakistani journalist
filmed a Taliban "graduation ceremony" for
would-be suicide bombers. The video [1] shows a
"graduating class of suicide bombers" ready to
travel to the United States and Western Europe to
carry out suicide attacks.
The video
deviates from usual suicide-bomber propaganda.
Normally, such propaganda appears post-mortem,
after a suicide attack has taken place, and is
congratulatory in nature. It
normally takes the form of a
eulogy to salute the "martyrdom" of the bomber and
is accompanied by a message celebrating the
bomber's service to the cause of Allah and Islam.
The videos are designed to celebrate the
ultimate sacrifice of the fighter and entice
others to follow in his or her footsteps. Whereas
traditional propaganda focuses on a single
individual or a small group (such as the
perpetrators of the September 11, 2001, attacks),
this video shows a large number of candidates
ready for suicide operations.
In another
divergence, the video shows future suicide bombers
displaying their enthusiasm for the task ahead.
Whereas typical videos attempt to inspire others
to become "martyrs", this one is also designed to
intimidate and threaten Western officials,
promising to unleash an "armada" of suicide
bombers striving to strike Western interests in
their native countries - unless the occupiers of
Afghanistan depart.
The video appears
specifically to target Anglo-Saxon audiences,
because the ceremony emulates an Anglo-Saxon
graduation ceremony. The video displays groups of
"students" dressed in white and seated on the
ground, while they hear the new Taliban commander,
Mansur Dadullah, deliver a fiery "commencement
address".
During his address, the crowd
listens intently as Dadullah exhorts them to
avenge the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's
intervention in Afghanistan. Dadullah says,
"Listen, all you Westerners and Americans. You
came from thousands of kilometers away to fight
us. Now we will get back to you in your countries
and attack you."
According to a June 18
British Broadcasting Corp report on the video, the
"students", organized in six national "brigades"
(British, American, Canadian, German, French and
Afghan), then take turns pledging future action.
The film ends with one student speaking in
English, with a heavy South Asian accent,
announcing that his team plans to travel to
Britain to carry out attacks there.
Although the message in itself is
familiar, the new packaging demonstrates the
Taliban's changing tactics. During the past two
years, rather than launching frontal offensives
against NATO, the Taliban have increasingly relied
on tactics used by insurgents in Iraq to divide
the NATO alliance and weaken its commitment to
assisting and supporting President Hamid Karzai's
government in Kabul.
To that end, the
Taliban have increased their attacks on coalition
and Afghan security forces significantly. They
also have emulated several of the egregious
tactics of Iraq's Sunni insurgents (such as
suicide bombings, improvised explosive devices and
kidnappings).
In March, for example, the
Taliban captured an Italian journalist and
demanded the release of a selected group of Afghan
prisoners in exchange for his life and that of his
Afghan driver and interpreter. The kidnapping
stirred great emotion in Italy.
Again in
April, the Taliban kidnapped two French
non-governmental-organization workers along with
their Afghan assistants. This time, the Taliban
demanded that France withdraw its forces and
pressure the Karzai government to release more
Taliban prisoners in exchange for the French
hostage.
The attack was cleverly timed to
take advantage of France's misgivings regarding
the Afghan mission amid the European country's
presidential campaign when candidates are
especially sensitive to public demands. In May,
the Taliban killed three German soldiers and
wounded 12 civilians in a crowded market in
Kunduz. In June, the Taliban planned to attack the
German minister of defense when he visited German
troops in Afghanistan, but the plot was thwarted.
This new Taliban tactic of dividing its
enemies threatens to strain the NATO alliance.
Both Italy and France, for example, negotiated the
release of their citizens held by the Taliban.
According to press accounts, the Italian
government paid a ransom and pressured the central
Afghan government to release the prisoners
demanded by the Taliban.
The move prompted
the US and British governments to criticize the
release publicly. US State Department spokesman
Sean McCormack said, "We don't negotiate with the
terrorists and we don't advise others to do it
either." From the State Department's point of
view, the release, in effect, rewarded the Taliban
for blackmail.
In the French case, it
appears that the Taliban did not make precise
demands for the release of prisoners, and the
Karzai government announced at the outset that it
would not consider any releases. The negotiation
process was complicated and involved several
intermediaries. Apparently, two different
negotiations took place, one for each hostage.
The woman, Celine, was released on
humanitarian grounds, to show, according to the
Taliban, that they hold women in high regard. The
man, Eric, was freed after then-presidential
candidate Nicolas Sarkozy announced that France
"had no vocation to stay in Afghanistan".
According to French press accounts, Sarkozy's
stance helped convince the Taliban that the French
would soon leave Afghanistan.
The Taliban
announced that they expected Sarkozy to carry out
his end of the bargain. The Taliban statement
read, "The mujahideen released the French worker
because the new president of France, Sarkozy, said
that if he was elected the president of France he
would withdraw all his forces from Afghanistan.
Now we believe him and we believe he will withdraw
his soldiers from Afghanistan after officially
being sworn in as president."
As for the
German case, soon after the attack in Kunduz, a
debate flared regarding the purpose of Germany's
involvement in Afghanistan. The Left Party, the
Green Party and some members of the Social
Democrat Party (SPD) called for a withdrawal of
German forces from Afghanistan. The SPD chairman
has called for a review, and Chancellor Angela
Merkel has voiced her support for such an
endeavor.
Thus far, however, the alliance
has held steady. Although Italy and France
negotiated the release of their hostages, they
have maintained their troop commitment to
Afghanistan.
At the Group of Eight summit
in Germany, Sarkozy reiterated that France "would
not break the allies' solidarity" and announced
that the French government had agreed to reinforce
its military presence to train the Afghan National
Army and to increase its reconstruction assistance
to consolidate the Afghan government. As for
Germany, the issue of renewing the mandate of
German forces in Afghanistan will not ensue until
September. Considering the slim margin of the
governing party, a renewal of the mandate is by no
means guaranteed.
The "graduation video"
appears to complement the Taliban's new tactics
and is designed to raise greatly the cost of
staying in Afghanistan for Western governments. If
attacking their citizens in Afghanistan is not
enough to make Western countries withdraw, then
threatening to attack their homelands is the next
logical step.
By disturbing the peace in
Western countries, the Taliban may be hoping to
provoke a stern public reaction against the NATO
presence in Afghanistan. Whether the Taliban are
actually capable of dispatching an armada of
suicide bombers to Western Europe and North
America remains to be seen. Regardless, the video
makes their intent clear, and the recent terrorist
incidents in the United Kingdom should incite
governments to take their threat seriously.
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