Suicide Bombers

Verily, Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their properties; for the price that theirs shall be the Paradise. They fight in Allah’s Cause, so they kill (others) and are killed.

—Qur’an 9:1111

Jihad (holy fighting in Allah’s Cause) is ordained for you (Muslims) though you dislike it, and it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you and that you like a thing which is bad for you. Allah knows but you do not know.

—Qur’an 2:216

I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them

over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes.

God is great! The stupid woman did it.

—Qur’an 8:12 —Iraqi insurgent, 20082

Iraqi police arrested a woman named Samira Jassim, the self-proclaimed “Mother of the Believers,” in early 2009. Prior to her arrest Jassim had been a top recruiter of female suicide bombers, with at least 80 women successfully recruited, 28 of whom went on to launch deadly suicide attacks. Since women often go unsearched by male security personnel and can hide explosives fairly easily beneath their robes, they have become popular for use in suicide bombings. In 2007 there were only eight suicide attacks launched by women in Iraq; in 2008, there were 32.3

Jassim described the recruitment process in detail in an interview and a taped police confession. In the confession, she reveals that insurgents often raped women she targeted for recruitment. The targets would be ashamed and vulnerable afterward, and Jassim would come and work on their consciences, persuading them to redeem their lost honor through martyrdom. Jassim describes her work with two poor, downtrodden women in detail. She describes how she manipulated them psychologically, playing on their sense of hopelessness and holding out the potential glories for themselves and their families if they agreed to blow themselves up. In one case, a woman whose brothers were squabbling with her in-laws proved vulnerable to Jassim’s prolonged wheedling.4

To many in the West, Jassim’s story can seem incredible. Why would a middle-aged mother of six participate in such a scheme? Her story illustrates many of the questions and misunderstandings that still surround the phenomenon of suicide bombing. Who becomes a suicide bomber? How are they recruited? What do they or the organizations who send them expect to accomplish? Do suicide attacks really have religious sanction?

SUICIDE BOMBERS—OVERVIEW AND MISCONCEPTIONS

Politicians and media outlets in the West prefer to promote the idea of suicide attacks being carried out by cowards or madmen, driven by poverty and poor education to desperate measures. The only problem with this picture of the problem is that it’s simply inaccurate. After three decades of study, we now know that suicide bombers tend to have a higher social background, higher income status, and higher education level than the people they live among. There is no meaningful link between poverty or psychological disorders and choosing to become a suicide terrorist. The unsettling reality is that suicide bombers are by and large normal enough people.5

Several details provide a rough profile of the average suicide bomber. Most are single men of about 25 (although women are now being used more often) without children. By and large they are normally educated with slightly better than average economic prospects.6 Some have argued that suicide terrorism may even be more of a middle class than a lower class phenomenon. An example of this would be Hanadi Jaradat, a 29-year-old Palestinian lawyer. Wishing to avenge the deaths of her brother and fiancée, who were killed by Israeli Defense Forces, she blew herself up in a restaurant in Haifa, killing 20 other people.7

When it comes to identifying motivations, suicide bombers are particularly hard to pin down. For some, like 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, religion is a factor but is also only part of the story. Atta was by all accounts extremely introverted and unfriendly and had difficulty making connections (or even keeping roommates) while he pursued a graduate degree in Germany in the early 90s. He lived a life without much in the way of romance or ordinary human connections, but he was not poor or uneducated. In fact, his education level was part of what made him appealing to al-Qaeda recruiters looking for participants in the 9/11 plot.8

For other suicide bombers, like Iraqi Hasna Maryi, the primary motivation may not even be religious at all. Maryi was drawn into the world of terrorism when her brother attempted a suicide mission but failed. Although Maryi was not deeply religious herself, she was very attached to her brother and sought redemption on his behalf.9 This is not uncommon for female suicide bombers, for whom redemption or revenge (as in the case of Hanadi Jaradat) can be a common motivating factor.10

There are also cases where suicide bombers are simply unwitting dupes, manipulated by terrorists to serve a cause they may not even believe in. One of the most outlandish examples of this was Anne-Marie Murphy in 1986. Murphy was an Irishwoman who had become pregnant by her Jordanian Arab boyfriend. The boyfriend promised to marry her back in his homeland and arranged for a flight to send her on ahead of him via Israel. The helpful fellow even went to the trouble of packing Murphy’s bags for her. When her luggage was checked in, however, the weight triggered an extra security check. Murphy was arrested for bringing several pounds of high explosives in her suitcase. The so-called boyfriend turned out to be a Syrian intelligence agent who was planning to blow up Murphy’s flight, killing all 370 on board.11 If his plot had gone forward, Murphy might have been classified as a suicide bomber. There is no way to tell exactly how many successful bombers may have been put in a similar spot. Researchers are still not fully agreed on how to classify or even count the suicide bombers who were deceived, drugged, or blackmailed into carrying out their attacks.12

The general consensus among terrorism researchers is that we are better off trying to understand the motivation of the organizations which make use of suicide terrorism than the motivation of individual bombers themselves.13 Suicide terrorism is still an ongoing phenomenon, and the scientific investigation of it is always contingent upon new developments. For example, the social scientist Robert Pape produced a highly respected analysis of suicide bombing just prior to the Iraq invasion. Then in 2004 there was a rash of suicide attacks by insurgents in Iraq which completely threw off the dataset Pape had been working with.14

The train bombing in Spain in 2004 illustrates some of the problems we have in classifying suicide attacks. Terrorists planted bombs on the trains and killed 191 people, making this one of the most destructive terror attacks since 9/11. When the perpetrators were later cornered by police, they blew themselves up. Not everyone agrees that the train bombing should be counted as a case of suicide terrorism since the plotters simply planted the bombs and may even have planned to carry out another attack later.15 Different scholars have different approaches to such questions, so it’s not hard to find conflicting reports about exactly how many “suicide attacks” have taken place. It all depends on how you define them.

ISLAM AND SUICIDE TERRORISM

There is also some debate in the Islamic world about whether suicide terrorism is in accord with the faith. Some insist that Islam has nothing to do with suicide bombing, and that the killing of innocents is explicitly forbidden by the Qur’an. There are certainly passages which seem to support this view, such as: “And do not kill the soul which Allah has forbidden [to be killed] except by [legal] right.”16 In the Hadith, there is a well-known example of Muhammad seeing a woman being killed during the course of a war and greatly disapproving of the killing of women and children.17 Also, no one disputes that Islam expressly condemns the act of suicide.18

Despite these arguments, terrorists continue to assert that they are fully justified by religion. One approach starts from explicit statements that Islam must be defended from anyone who wishes to attack it.19 By extension, it is argued that anyone who does not promote Islam is an enemy and is therefore not an innocent. This was the argument, for instance, used to justify the murder and attempted dismemberment of unarmed British soldier Lee Rigby in London. The killers insisted they did so out of self-defense—as a way of acting on behalf of Muslims in Afghanistan who were being killed by British soldiers. Another approach begins from the fact that dying in the course of a battle for Islam is a widely celebrated act of martyrdom.20 This approach is what leads terrorists to interpret suicide bombing as dying in the course of battle; Hamas uses the phrase “martyrdom operations” to describe suicide attacks for this reason.

A critical text in understanding the religious support for suicide bombing is The Islamic Ruling on the Permissibility of Self-Sacrificial Operations. Produced by a top al- Qaeda operative, this work expresses considerable approval for “martyrdom or self-sacrifice operations”:

As for the effects of these operations on the enemy, we have found, through the course of our experience that there is no other technique which strikes as much terror in their hearts, and which shatters their spirit as much.21

The author uses the textual tradition of the Qur’an and the Hadith to find evidence supporting Islamic fighters charging into battle against overwhelming odds (or even single- handedly), knowing they would be killed. Going out and dying for the sake of Allah or Islam is acceptable.22

The author also points to Islamic scholarship defending this very approach to the issue. A notable example comes from the 12th century Muslim theologian Al-Ghazali, who announced that it is forbidden for Muslims to throw their lives away—by which he means for Muslims to die without taking infidel lives with them. It is permissible, however, to risk one’s life if there is a reasonable expectation that infidels will be killed or their morale significantly weakened. Terror, in al-Ghazali’s reckoning, is the justification for martyrdom; creating it is religious mitigation. Actions which demonstrate to infidels that Muslims do not fear death but love martyrdom for the sake of Allah are considered praiseworthy. Al-Qaeda agrees.23

A crucial hadith used to provide religious support for suicide bombing involves a Muslim boy and an infidel king who wishes to make him abandon his faith. Through the course of this long story, the boy is protected from death until he instructs the king to take his life with an arrow from the boy’s own quiver. The result of this miraculous little tale is that all of the king’s subjects converted to Islam.24 Al-Qaeda is one of several Islamist groups which make use of this tale:

The boy, in this hadith, ordered the killing of himself as a sacrifice in the interest and benefit of the [Muslim faith], and this indicates that such a deed is legitimate, and not considered suicide.25

The position can be summed up in this way: suicide is forbidden, but martyrdom is glorious.

A key idea to keep in mind here is the Islamic principle of ijithad (independent interpretation). By tradition, Muslims cannot condemn another Muslim’s interpretation unless it is unambiguously contradicted by the Qur’an or the Hadith. Because of this principle, vague rationales—such as the above rationales for suicide bombing—cannot be authoritatively rejected. Bad logic is allowed to carry the force of divine decree, and texts can be manipulated to suit almost anyone’s agenda. There is virtually no solid ground in Islam to criticize the behavior of suicide bombers. When Grand Ayatollah Khomeini announced that suicide attacks were permissible in 1983 virtually the entire Shiite world took that as justification. Although the Sunni world is more divided on the issue, the principle of ijithad means there cannot be a definitive decision against it.26

Given the somewhat roundabout way in which suicide terrorism is accepted, different Islamic groups and countries have different approaches to using it as a technique. For example, Saddam Hussein’s regime made key distinctions between different categories of attacks and provided funding to the families of suicide terrorists based on which category they fell into. One distinction they used was whether someone was a “regular” martyr or a martyr who died on a suicide mission. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, does not seem to distinguish between suicide terrorists and martyrs who actually die in combat.27 Other differences involve classification of legitimate targets. Hezbollah has denounced al-Qaeda’s indiscriminate targeting of civilians, for instance.

SUICIDE BOMBING AS A TECHNIQUE

Suicide attacks have been around for many centuries as an instrument of policy. The Islamic Order of Assassins made use of targeted suicide attacks in the 12th and 13th centuries. In the 19th century, Russian anarchists used suicide bombings to sow fear and spread terror. Toward the end of World War II, Japanese kamikaze pilots made suicide runs to destroy and delay U.S. naval shipping. But the modern use of suicide bombing began with Hezbollah in Lebanon in the 1980s. Hezbollah targeted embassies, military headquarters, convoys, and even a Jewish Cultural Center, but their attacks were almost always aimed primarily at military targets.28

Between 1980 and 2003, more than 80 percent of all uses of the suicide attack as a technique occurred as part of the Arab jihad against Israel or as part of a separatist movement on the island of Sri Lanka.29 Following the U.S. invasion, however, Iraq became the third major location for suicide attacks. Between 2003 and 2010 there were 1,003 documented cases of “suicide bomb events” impacting civilians in Iraq, killing 12,284 civilians and injuring more than 30,000. These attacks were a leading cause of death, responsible for nearly 11 percent of all civilian casualties nationwide.30 To give an idea of how big an increase this really was, consider that between 1980 and 2003 there were a total of 315 suicide attacks committed worldwide.31 Pakistan has lately emerged as another key site for suicide bombings.

The most noteworthy element of suicide attacks as a technique of terrorism is their extreme lethality. Suicide attacks represent only about three percent of total terrorist attacks, but they are responsible for a third of all deaths due to terrorism.32 An al-Qaeda text on the topic mentions with approval that in addition to inflicting the heaviest losses suicide attacks are also the most inexpensive to carry out.33 In addition to being lethal, suicide attacks can also be successful in changing government policy. For example, al- Qaeda regards the use of suicide attacks in Israel as a “major factor in convincing the Jews to grant self-rule to the Palestinians.”34

Even though examples such as the kamikazes and the Tamil Tigers can be brought up, the fact is that outside of Islam examples of suicide terrorism are very limited in scope and duration. To be a suicide bomber one must be very dedicated to something outside oneself like a kamikaze being dedicated to the Japanese Emperor. Or one must be extremely lacking in critical introspection. That was the case with Mohamed Atta, for instance. It is also why terrorist organizations have been increasing their use of children to do their dirty work—children are more likely to believe stories about going to Paradise, and they don’t have a precise understanding of what a suicide attack really means for them.

Take the case of Umar Fidai in Pakistan. Umar was a 14-year-old boy trained by the Taliban for a suicide attack, but he survived when his vest failed to detonate properly. He later told BBC interviewers:

All I was thinking was that I had to detonate myself near as many people as possible. When I decided it was the right time, it was a moment of happiness for me. I thought that there would be a little bit of pain, but then I would be in heaven.35

As Umar explained, he wasn’t really thinking about the issue, he had simply accepted what the Taliban told him. He grew up surrounded by Taliban, saw them praying and reading the Qur’an and assumed they were “good people.” When they directed him to attack the shrine of a Sufi saint, he was reluctant since the victims would be fellow Muslims. Yet when his Taliban handlers explained that people who pray to the dead at shrines were “even bigger infidels” he accepted this. It was only after his vest failed to detonate that Umar realized how he had been taken advantage of.36

The biggest spike in the use of suicide bombing has come from the practice of groups such as al-Qaeda. That is, it comes from groups which adhere to a literal, fundamentalist view of Islam. As seen above, these groups have little trouble finding justification for their “martyrdom operations” in the behavior and beliefs of the 7th century Islamic community. Now, they are trying to engage in these operations for the sake of bringing the entire Islamic world back to the 7th century. The key point is that there is no definitive reason within Islam itself why one can say they should not be doing what they are doing.

THE USE OF SUICIDE BOMBING

Islamist groups make use of suicide bombing for three main reasons. One is to compel nation states to change their policies (this is one of the primary goals of suicide bombing in Israel). A second goal is to gain prestige, money, and recruits for the organization itself (this is partly how Hezbollah has made itself a major player in Lebanon).37 A third goal, which is typical of organizations like al-Qaeda and the Taliban, is the victory of their particular brand of Islam.38

Suicide missions “work” to achieve these ends in several ways. First and foremost, as noted above, is the lethality of suicide attacks. By killing large numbers of people, whether civilian or military or both, terror groups may force governments to recalculate or change strategies while simultaneously raising their public profile. Not many people knew what al- Qaeda was until the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa. Such attacks also signal willingness on the part of the groups to carry out future attacks.39

With groups such as al-Qaeda, a suicide attack is also a tremendous demonstration of faith. It is not only a demonstration to the world, but a demonstration to the Muslim world of al-Qaeda’s commitment to a very literal, fundamentalist conception of Islamic piety.40 Civilians are legitimate and effective targets because the enemy is conceived of as the whole world of unbelievers—and Islamic doctrine and texts are quite clear, as we have seen elsewhere in this book, moral rules that apply to Muslims do not apply tounbelievers. When al-Qaeda carries out a suicide attack they are in effect advising like- minded organizations and individuals to go and do likewise.41

However, we should note that terrorist organizations often make cynical use of people who don’t know any better to further their own goals. This was the case with Samira Jassim, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. The willingness of Iraq insurgents to rape women to make them more amenable to becoming suicide terrorists should be ample demonstration that there is nothing “religious” about their interests at all. But nowhere is the cynical manipulation of would-be suicide bombers more evident than in the use of children.

Take the example of Neaz, an Afghan boy who was orphaned at age eight by a helicopter raid. The Taliban abducted him after the raid, and plied him with chocolate and promises of money. When the boy questioned what use he would have for money if he was dead, they simply promised he would go to Paradise. Taliban leaders showed him how to use guns and make IEDs. They also provided him with a suicide vest laden with bullets and grenades. Neaz escaped from the compound and walked nine miles to the nearest police station to turn himself in. Clearly, boys like Neaz do not exactly have a “motivation” to become suicide bombers.42

In Pakistan, the Taliban attempted a more aggressive approach with an eight-year-old girl. The girl was kidnapped on her way to school and drugged. The abductors kept the girl drugged and strapped on a suicide vest with 20 pounds of explosives. Then they drove her to a checkpoint and pushed her out of the vehicle. The girl managed to indicate to the guards what she was wearing and got the vest removed. The kidnappers escaped.43 If the attack had gone as planned, this girl would hardly have been a motivated suicide bomber.

The use of suicide bombing in some places has become so routine that it’s even used for completely banal purposes. In one infamous case from Bhakkar, Pakistan, a man paid for a suicide bomber and explosives simply to settle scores over delays in a loan repayment.44 Life is apparently so cheap in Pakistan now that suicide bombers can be hired for personal grievances.45 This is about as far removed from anything that could be described as “martyrdom” as one could possibly imagine.

Suicide bombers, at least the most educated among them, have one thing in common. They want to return Islam to its origins—to 7th century Arabia and the life and times and practices of Muhammad. Along the way to this, they have no room in their thoughts for self-criticism or examination of evidence. No critical thinking takes place. Instead, the authority of the Qur’an, Muhammad, and sharia law is accepted without question and anything contrary to that authority is to be defeated and destroyed. In doing this, suicide bombers do not deviate from Islam or the Qur’an, they are following it in its most literal sense.

On one point suicide bombers and modern Western politicians have something in common. The politicians also refuse to examine Islam or the Qur’an in a critical fashion. Instead, they dismiss suicide bombers and radical Islamic thinkers as simply outside the mainstream of an otherwise peaceful religion. By refusing to challenge the worldview and epistemology of Islam, and by refusing to challenge Islam’s content and its sources, Western leaders are essentially encouraging suicide bombers by default.

To defeat Islamic imperialism, its core doctrines and teachings must be examined critically. Suicide bombers and their mentors refuse to conduct such an examination. So do our own politicians.