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Middle East
Death behind the wheel in
Iraq By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - The US military offensive to
recapture control over Fallujah is likely to be a
drawn-out affair. While the insurgents might not stand
and fight the American ground troops - they can be
expected, like all guerrillas to melt away and return to
fight another day - they are likely to inflict maximum
damage on American soldiers. According to media reports,
even as bombs and shells rain on Fallujah, hundreds of
suicide bombers are preparing to welcome US Marines and
Iraqi forces advancing into the city.
According
to a report in the Times of London, about 300 foreign
fighters have volunteered as suicide bombers to defend
Fallujah. Citing an insurgent commander, the report says
that "some [of the suicide bombers] would be used in 118
vehicles already rigged with explosives, others would be
waiting in booby-trapped homes for American and Iraqi
soldiers hunting from house to house for [Abu Musab]
al-Zarqawi's fighters."
Suicide bombings have
emerged as an important weapon in the arsenal of
militant groups. Their attractiveness as a tactical
weapon can be attributed to the fact that they are
cost-effective, being low on investment and high on
returns. The cost-effectiveness of suicide operations
explains their increasing frequency and the expanding
geographical area over which they are being mounted.
Iraq has been the scene of hundreds of suicide
attacks since the US-led invasion of the country in
March, 2003. Prior to the invasion, Iraq had never
witnessed suicide attacks; the first Iraqi suicide
attack came in the opening days of the war. An Iraqi
bomber posing as a taxi driver approached a checkpoint
north of Najaf and blew himself and his explosive-filled
car up, killing four US soldiers. And in the 20 months
since, the number of suicide attacks has spiraled. In
fact, the number of people killed in suicide explosions
in Iraq in less than two years is said to be far greater
than the number of victims killed in suicide bombings in
the last four years of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
It is interesting to note that successful
suicide operations carried out by Palestinians have been
followed by celebrations of the bombers' "martyrdom".
Posters of each "martyr" appear on the walls of the
Occupied Territories, announcements in newspapers read
like wedding invitations, the bomber's family members
take pride in public in the "martyrdom operation" of
their kin and distribute sweets to celebrate.
What follows suicide operations in Iraq is a
picture in contrast. There are no public celebrations of
martyrdom, which could be because most suicide bombers
are, as the US-led coalition claims, foreign fighters -
Islamic radicals inspired by or with links to al-Qaeda.
Since they do not have kin in Iraq, their deaths go
unmarked. If the suicide bombers are indeed Iraqi, then
the silence following an operation could be because
locals, fearing American retaliation on the family,
simply prefer to keep quiet and not celebrate publicly.
But for those suicide operations for which
al-Zarqawi's al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Unity and Holy War)
has claimed responsibility, little is known about the
identity of the suicide bombers and of those
masterminding the missions. What is clear about the
suicide bombings is their deadly impact - they have
killed hundreds and caused immense terror among the
occupation forces, the Iraqi forces as well as ordinary
Iraqi people. They seem to have emerged as the coalition
force's worst security nightmare.
Unlike the
Palestinian suicide bombing experience, where human
bombs - humans strapped with explosives - are deployed,
in Iraq most suicide bombing operations involve humans
ramming explosive-laden vehicles into their targets.
While it is true that Iraq has witnessed a large
number of suicide bombings in a relatively short span of
time, suicide bombings are not, as many media reports
claim, the insurgents' weapon of choice. Car bomb
explosions are far more frequent than suicide bombings.
Insurgents in Iraq opt for car bombs because they are
easier to assemble; all that is required is a vehicle
and explosives, which can be put together quickly in
response to changing intelligence on targets.
Vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices can slip
through checkpoints easily as the explosive or bomb
could be hidden under piles of vegetables or
construction material.
Across Iraq and
especially in Baghdad, vehicle-borne improvised
explosive devices are more commonly used by insurgents
to target the occupation forces and destabilize the
US-appointed Iraqi interim administration. Of the car
bombings reported so far, over half the number were
detonations set off by remote control, less than half
being suicide bombings.
Yet the impression one
gets from reading media reports is that it is suicide
bombings that are the preferred weapon of the
insurgents. This misrepresentation is partly because of
lazy journalism - reporters do not ascertain the finer
details of a blast and end up lumping together car bomb
explosions with suicide bombers ramming explosive-laden
vehicles. More worryingly, it could be the result of an
attempt to create public revulsion towards the
insurgents and their methods.
"Suicide
terrorism" is a phenomenon that is far more
controversial than the concept of terrorism itself. In
addition to the controversy over the word "terrorism",
Islam frowns on suicide. Insurgent groups that use
suicide attacks therefore do not like their attacks to
be described as suicide terrorism. They prefer to use
terms like "martyrdom operations".
An insurgent
attack, which might otherwise seem to the Iraqi people
as a legitimate response to the US occupation, is more
likely to get de-legitimized in the eyes of Muslims when
it is labeled a suicide attack. Besides, the very idea
that a human is blowing himself and others up in a
manner that leaves little of the human body intact
evokes deep revulsion.
The possibility that the
occupation forces label car bomb blasts as suicide
attacks with the aim of de-legitimizing the insurgency
in the eyes of the Iraqi people and triggering in them
revulsion for the insurgents cannot be ruled out. This
not only explains the reported sharp increase in suicide
attacks but also the fact that little is known about the
identity of the suicide bombers.
Sudha
Ramachandran is an independent researcher/writer
based in Bangalore, India. She has a doctoral degree
from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal
Nehru University in New Delhi. Her areas of interest
include terrorism, conflict zones and gender and
conflict. Formerly an assistant editor at Deccan Herald
(Bangalore) she now teaches at the Asian College of
Journalism, Chennai.
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