Page 1 of
2 The world's worst suicide
bombers By Brian Glyn Williams
Suicide bombing statistics from
Afghanistan alarmingly demonstrate that, if the
current trend continues, 2007 will surpass last
year in the number of overall attacks.
While there were 47 bombings by mid-June
2006, there were about 57 during the same period
this year. Compounding fears of worse carnage to
come, Afghanistan's most lethal single suicide
bombing attack to date recently took the lives of
35 Afghan police
trainers near Kabul.
When considering the expanding use of
improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and the
discovery of the first Iraqi-style explosively
formed projectile (EFP) in Afghanistan in May (ie,
a more deadly form of IED that has killed high
numbers of soldiers in Iraq), it is understandable
that critics of the war in Afghanistan discuss it
in alarmist tones.
About 80% of US
casualties in Iraq come from IEDs, and members of
the US and Afghan military who were interviewed
for this study believe that the absence of
mass-casualty suicide bombings and EFPs are the
two factors that made Afghanistan less dangerous
than Iraq. A deeper investigation of the wave of
suicide bombings that have swept the country in
2006 and 2007 paints a less bleak picture.
Missing the target An analysis
of the attacks carried out in the past two years
reveals a curious fact. In 43% of the bombings
conducted last year and in 26 of the 57 bombings
traced in this study up to June 15 this year, the
only death caused by the bombing was that of the
bomber himself. This means that, astoundingly,
about 90 suicide bombers in this two-year period
succeeded in killing only themselves.
There was one period in the spring of 2006
(February 20 to June 21) when a stunning 26 of the
36 suicide bombers in Afghanistan (72%) killed
only themselves. This puts the kill average for
Afghan suicide bombers far below that of suicide
bombers in other theaters of action in the area
(Israel, Chechnya, Iraq and the Kurdish areas of
Turkey).
Such unusual bomber-to-victim
death statistics are, of course, heartening both
for coalition troops - who have described the
Afghan suicide bombers as "amateurs" - and for the
Afghan people - who are usually the victims of the
clumsy bombings.
These statistics also
represent a uniquely Afghan phenomenon that
warrants investigation. A part of the reason for
the low kill ratio lies in the Taliban's unique
targeting sets. As Pashtuns with a strong code
(Pashtunwali) that glorifies acts of
martial valor and badal (revenge), Afghan
suicide bombers are more prone to hit "hard"
military targets than callously obliterate
innocent civilians in the Iraqi fashion. On the
rare occasions where there have been high-casualty
bombings of Afghan civilians, they tend to have
been carried out by Arab al-Qaeda bombers. [1]
The Taliban's selective targeting is a
calculated decision on the part of the Taliban
shuras (councils) to avoid inciting the
sort of anti-Taliban protests that led thousands
in the Pashtun town of Spin Boldak to chant "Death
to Pakistan, death to al-Qaeda, death to the
Taliban" after a particularly bloody suicide
bombing in that frontier city last year.
Taliban spokesman Zabiyullah Mujahed
recently claimed, "We do our best in our suicide
attacks to avoid civilian casualties. These are
our Muslim countrymen, and we are sacrificing our
blood to gain their freedom. Their lives are
important to us, of course. But fighting with
explosives is out of the control of human beings."
Then he made an interesting admission that speaks
to other factors that might explain the Afghan
suicide bombers' failure rate. He stated, "We have
a problem with making sure they attack the right
targets, avoiding killing civilians."
Clearly, there is more to the Taliban
bombers' stunning failure rate than simply "hard"
targeting difficulties and an obvious reluctance
to slaughter the Afghan constituency that the
Taliban is trying to win over.
Members of
the Afghan police, government and National
Directorate of Security (NDS) who were interviewed
about this trend during the months of April and
May offered a surprisingly unanimous explanation
for the Taliban bombers' poor showing. [2] They
said it lay in the ineptitude of the people the
Taliban were recruiting as fedayeen
(suicide) bombers.
Afghan officials
continually told stories of lower-class people who
had been seduced, bribed, tricked, manipulated or
coerced into blowing themselves up as "weapons of
God" or "[Taliban leader] Mullah Omar's missiles".
Afghan NDS officials also spoke of apprehended
bombers who were deranged, retarded, mentally
unstable or on drugs.
Such claims should,
of course, be accepted with caution, for two
reasons. First, the targets of suicide bombings
are prone to speak in disparaging tones regarding
the mental state and motives of those who carry
out bombing attacks against them. They tend to
describe them as mindless, insane, fanatical,
drugged or brainwashed.
Second, in his
groundbreaking work Understanding Terror
Networks, Marc Sageman has refuted the
long-held notion that suicide bombers are
impoverished, voiceless dupes tricked into killing
themselves. Rather, he has shown them to be
politically and religiously motivated. They are
conscious actors who, like the multilingual and
educated team that carried out the attacks of
September 11, 2001, do not need to be brainwashed.
Certainly, in the Afghan context, there
are bombers who fit the Sageman profile. Several
Taliban leaders have carried out bombings, and the
al-Qaeda team that scrambled on short notice to
launch the symbolically important mass-casualty
bombing at Bagram Air Base during US Vice
President Dick Cheney's February visit was clearly
composed of "professionals" [3]
Nevertheless, interviews and field work
conducted in Afghanistan for this study revealed
considerable evidence that the "duped, bribed,
brainwashed" paradigm applies to a growing
percentage of the bombers being deployed in the
Afghan theater. [4] Afghan police told of numerous
incidents where citizens in Kabul reported finding
abandoned suicide vests in the city. They seemed
to signify a last-minute change of heart in
several would-be bombers. In one case, they
told of a mentally deranged man who threw his vest
at an Afghan patrol, assuming it would explode on
its own. [5] Several of the bombers apprehended by
the NDS were carrying mind-altering hallucinogens
or sedatives, which they had been told to take to
calm their fears during their last moments of
life. Others, including a Taliban bomber who was
arrested while pushing his explosives-laden car
toward its target after it ran out of fuel, appear
to be inept beyond belief. [6]
Recent
media and think-tank reports have also mentioned
the utilization as suicide bombers of an Afghan
war invalid who was blind, another who was an
amputee and one who was a disabled man whose only
motive was to make money for his family. Coalition
troops who have spoken of seeing bombers blow
themselves up far from their convoys have
characterized it as the act of drugged or mentally
unstable bombers.
While this might explain
some of the Afghan suicide bombers' failures,
there also appears to be a financial motive behind
several of the bombings that offers further
explanation. United Nations
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
