Why The Taliban Now Embrace The Concept Of Suicide Bombing

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Toronto Globe and Mail
March 28, 2008
Pg. 1
By Graeme Smith
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- Suicide bombing used to be a subject of debate among the Taliban, as they struggled to decide whether the tactic was too extreme, but the frightening new reality in Afghanistan is that the radicals appear to be winning that argument within the Taliban ranks.
None of the 42 insurgents surveyed by The Globe and Mail were willing to express any reservations about suicide bombings when confronted by a researcher with a video recorder, and many of them boasted that they were ready to volunteer for such missions themselves.
Some Taliban have previously argued that it's cowardly to wear an explosive vest, because it prevents an insurgent from fighting his enemy face-to-face. Others suggested that the carnage among civilian bystanders that often results from a suicide blast alienates ordinary Afghans from the insurgency. A Taliban faction even took out an advertisement in one of Kandahar's weekly newspapers in 2006, blaming recent suicide bombings on foreign fighters and promising to stop the attacks: "We will punish them," the advertisement said.
A year later, in the same province, all insurgents surveyed said they disagree. Suicide attacks are endorsed by religious authorities, they said, and they represent the Taliban's equivalent of air power, a devastating weapon capable of carefully aimed strikes. Few of them blamed foreign jihadists for the attacks.
The researcher asked them if the suicide bombers "are only Afghans or are they foreigners?"
"They are sons of Afghanistan, and they are Afghans through and through," a fighter said. "They sacrifice their lives for their country."
A few of the Taliban seemed to acknowledge that it's a controversial means of fighting, but they claimed that such tactics are necessary against the overwhelming technological superiority of the foreign troops.
"Some people say that it is not good," an insurgent said. "But they don't know that against non-Muslims, it is very good, because they can stop any kind of attack but not these kinds of attacks." Another gave a similar explanation: "It is good to be used against the non-Muslims, because they are not afraid of fighting for five days against us but they are afraid of one bomber," he said. "I pray to God to make me able to do this."
The result of this shift in Taliban thinking has already become obvious in the number of suicide blasts. Afghanistan had never seen a suicide bombing before 2001, and the first such attack in the country - on Sept. 9, 2001, targeting Ahmad Shah Massoud, the famed rebel leader who was fighting the Taliban - was blamed on Arab extremists, not Afghans.
It does not seem likely that the sudden Taliban enthusiasm for blowing themselves up was driven exclusively by the insurgency's desire to kill more troops, analysts say, because so far the Taliban have proven themselves relatively incompetent at suicide bombing. A report for the United Nations in September found that, on average, more than three suicide bombers are required to inflict a single casualty on the international forces. "From a military point of view, this could be considered extreme failure," the report said.
But the act of sacrificing oneself has a symbolic value; suicide bombers are publicly demonstrating the ultimate level of personal commitment to an ideology. The Globe survey suggested that those who craft the Taliban's ideology, their religious leaders, have made an organized effort to prove suicide bombing is acceptable in Islam.
Several of the insurgents said they couldn't remember the specific reference to Islamic holy texts used by their teachers to justify the idea, but some made reference to a story about a Muslim army that existed in the seventh century, during the lifetime of the Prophet Mohammed.
"There is a story from the time of the Prophet," one insurgent said.
"There were two companions of the Prophet, and ... they were attacking a place [where] the walls were high, so they could not jump over the wall." He continued: "One lifted the other over the wall and he died in the attack. He knew he would be killed, but it was his duty."
Turialai Wafa, former chief of staff to Kandahar's governor, said he has heard this justification before and it represents an incorrect view of Islamic teaching. A warrior who shows bravery in battle has nothing in common, he said, with somebody who breaks two major Islamic rules: committing suicide and attacking without first declaring intent.
"When one wants to justify an act of war to people - in Afghanistan's case, illiterate angry masses who cannot read but only hear what the mullahs and radicals are telling them - you can almost justify anything," Mr. Wafa said.
"The increase of suicide bombers recently has different causes, and one major one would be the lack of an alternative to express political opposition," Mr. Wafa added. "It takes either a strong resolve or absolute despair. My personal opinion is it's never, ever the strong resolve, but the absolute despair."
 
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