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Knowing the suicide bomber
Dr Iftekhar A Khan
The nation is presently facing a very grim scenario where it seems, the
unstoppable suicide bombers are shattering the social, political and
economic fabrics of the society. Who they are? From where they come? Who
send them and why? Why are they so willing to die and kill? Are they
conscious of the consequences of their act? These and many other
questions beg answers which may help understand menace and may also
provide the way forward to deal with it. Of the sixty-five or so suicide
bombings occurred in the year 2007 very little information regarding the
identity of the bombers could be gleaned and majority of them remained
obscure. As per the information available through the print and
electronic media, one can safety presume that the knowledge of our
security apparatuses about these bombers is insufficient too. Hence to
formulate strategies to control, prevent and eradicate this menace one
has to study it in a scientific way.
At present the classical mode of identifying a suicide bomber is to
collect his body parts, send them for finger prints identification and
NDA testing for cross matching with a small database of DNA record,
locating his family and friends, questioning and interrogation of the
nabbed family members, and trying to track the trail of his motivators
and eventually his handlers. But this standard operating procedure has
yielded very little and in essence the goal of eradication and
prevention seems to be elusive as yet. The problem is multi-faceted and
multi-dimensional, so the solution has to be multi-dimensional and
multi-disciplined.
A common belief these days is that these are young and imbecile recruits
who have somehow been lured and brain washed to the extent that they can
easily kill and die. In few cases it may hold good but in general, these
persons with low IQ’s cannot be trusted for sophisticated and mature
hits. It is difficult to expect from an imbecile to become a useful tool
for his handlers against the hi-tech anti-terrorism gadgetry and skills.
It seems possible that indoctrination and exploitation of religious
sentiments of the young, raw and enraged minds may play a significant
role in carving out of a typical suicide bomber, yet this has its
limitations. This will entail a tiresome exercise to locate, lure and
rope in the right stuff from vast geographical and social strata of
religiously learning youth. Besides the kind of shrewdness needed to
evade law-enforcers for hours and days at a stretch before reaching the
target is unlikely to be inculcated in these individuals through
training for a few weeks.
After Lal Masjid and subsequent military operations in Waziristan and
Swat, (particularly after October 2007) it is being observed that
average age of these suicide bombers is around 17 years, less than the
required minimum age for acquiring the official ID cards. It may have
two elements of operational advantages, the first is that their
identification through their fingerprints becomes difficult as NADRA
would have no records of their identity and secondly they do not have
many acquaintances, apart from the immediate family and childhood
friends who anyway would refrain from coming forward to identify him.
This class of suicide bombers comprises mainly those whose families have
suffered and keeping true to the Pukhtoon tradition of revenge of BADAL,
they may go to any extent.
These already infuriated young minds are taking influences from their
families, friends and local Jehadi elements, imbibing them with a rare
steely resolve. It has already attained a certain degree of
“folk-lorish” tradition where stories of previous suicide bombers’
valour and commitment are told and retold, both in poetry and prose. The
never ending stream of these young volunteers suggests that they are
overwhelmed more by their hate filled vengeance than religious
commitment. That probably may explain the suicide bombing in the middle
of Eid prayers in a Charsadda Masjid targeting Mr Sherpao yet again. It
is improbable for a religious person to kill someone who is offering his
prayers but for a hate monger it is fair enough to hit his target even
if he has to kill scores of innocent Nimazis.
We can identify three stages in this phenomenon. In the first stage the
suicide bombers were impromptu volunteers who could not control their
rage over the perceived tyranny with their fellow faith holders. The
second stage bombers were those who had already sworn to become martyrs
and went after those thy thought were behind the arrest of killing of
their loved Jehadi comrades. The third stagers are the latest addition
and mainly are those young men who have lost loved ones in the military
operations and want to take revenge and are doing this more under
extreme hate tan religiously. This last variety is capable of driving
this sustained campaign for a fairly long period and is by far the most
difficult to demotivate. The use of power and other administrative
measures are unlikely to control and eradicate this problem in the short
or long-terms thus needing both conventional and extraordinary
solutions.
It is proposed that a task force may be constituted comprising clinical
psychologists, psychiatrist and anthropologists which should study the
available information about a suicide bomber, visit his family and
interview the family members and also study his social and economic
environment. This team shall try to reconstruct the life pattern of the
bomber including his childhood choices, adolescent preferences and
education. In a way this team is required to re-humanise the bomber.
Apart from the usual criminal interrogations which scares more but
yields little, this investigative and scientific psycho-analysts may
help understand this phenomenon and if we can find out a common
denominator, it will be useful in dealing with this menace. An
integrated programme for weaning away of the vulnerable youth from the
revenge and militancy may be devised. This can be done in the form of a
project having three components namely, (i) a religio-social effort for
debriefing, (ii) a comprehensive madrassa based vocational training and,
(iii) educational stipends for both religious and formal education.
Since this project will be multi-dimensional and will be dealing with
many government and non-government organizations, it is suggested that
it may be initiated under either Governor NWFP or Prime Minister’s
Secretariat.
All those suspected would be suicide bombers who are under custody may
be treated as psychiatric patients and thus a comprehensive debriefing
programme may be devised for their correction and rehabilitation. Local
Ulema may be motivated and enlisted in this effort. They may be
encouraged to boldly reveal the truth about the wickedness and religious
illegality of the suicides, no mater how sacred the cause is. They may
be requested to take this as their sacred duty because this menace is
attaining a mythical dimension. They can also help identify vulnerable
young men for whom a comprehensive rehabilitation strategy should be
chalked out which should provide for free education either at a madrassa
or formal schooling as per the choice of the individuals. Coercive
measures to gain their cooperation will not be sustainable. For a
willing participation these Ulema should be convinced with respect and
dignity.
At the local Madrassa a vocational training programme may be a useful
addition which can be started with the cooperation of the local Ulema. A
smart monthly stipend for every students will be an added attraction.
The course contents of the religious education should be left to a local
Shura comprising Ulema, representatives of the local community and local
government. While the vocational training may be supervised by NAVTEC or
any other specially constituted organization.
