Taliban Recruiting Persons with Disablities to carry out suicide attacks

Taliban recruiting vulnerable groups to carry out suicide attacks

Submitted by administrator on Mon, 05/07/2007 - 13:16.
international

By SONYA FATAHToronto Globe and Mail Monday, May 07, 2007

The suicide bombing at a Kabul Internet cafe drew attention for a number of reasons: It was one of the first in the Afghan capital after the fall of the Taliban; it struck a spot popular with foreigners; and a U.N. worker was among those who died along with the attacker, Qari Samiullah.
But a little-known fact about that 2005 blast offers a clue into the workings of the insurgents who recruit suicide bombers, and what, apart from religious propaganda, has motivated about 200 men to blow themselves up: In addition to being a deeply religious man, Samiullah was disabled.
His disability didn't come as a surprise. As the insurgency in Afghanistan gathers urgency, the Taliban and other forces are recruiting marginalized and vulnerable groups to carry out suicide attacks while men from their own ranks keep up the ground offensive.
The pool of the disenchanted and hopeless is large in Afghanistan _ people left on the fringes by their economic, physical or mental circumstances _ and there are few services to rehabilitate them after three decades of war.
"Almost 90 percent of (suicide bombers) are people with some form of disability," forensic expert Dr. Yusuf Yadgari said.
Every bomber's body in Kabul-based attacks passes through Yadgari's morgue. He has so far detected such disabilities as muscular dystrophy, amputated toes, blindness, skin diseases and signs of mental illness in the bodies of suicide bombers.
Although no statistics are available, anecdotal evidence increasingly backs up Yadgari's observations. Security experts argue that the Taliban seek out the disaffected, the poor and the marginalized, a group that certainly would include a majority of the disabled. And non-governmental organizations (NGOs) say reports of disabled people being trained as suicide bombers, although unproven, are common.
"One reason why people entertain the idea is there is complete loss of hope in being able to live a normal life," said Firoz Ali Alizada, who lost his legs to a land mine and now uses artificial legs and crutches.
"In a culture like ours, disability and the possibility of being out on the street are equated with great shame. A man who is married and has children is suddenly incapable of supporting and feeding his family. ... He might find it easier to die."
Disabled people are a significant portion of Afghanistan's population, but they live on the margins of its society. One NGO, Handicapped International, identifies nine dimensions of disability, including the ability to care for oneself, depression, epilepsy or seizures, and restrictions on physical movement. About 2.7 percent of the population has very severe disabilities, according to the group.
When a wider segment of disability is included, the percentage skyrockets to 58.9. Even that, observers say, excludes mental disability and disabilities among women.
"It is clear that the Taliban are using financial incentives in many cases to encourage suicide bombers," said Sam Zarifi, Asia Division research director of Human Rights Watch.
"It's not just ideological fervor. It is clear that in a place like Afghanistan where there is a very weak economy, the handicapped, whether physically disabled or mentally challenged, are going to be more vulnerable to that kind of financial incentive."
Money for suicide bombings is offered to families of the bombers, so they can live a better life, a compensation of sorts for the loss of a male breadwinner.
In the early days of Afghan suicide attacks, the Taliban offered $250, sources say. But that number has risen to as high as $10,000. A young man from Kandahar whose attack was foiled by police said he was offered $15,000.
Saifuddin Nezami, director of the Community Center for the Disabled, who is himself disabled, said he can see how recruiting disabled people would be effective:
"In Kabul we have some services for the disabled ... but in the provinces there is nothing _ no services, no vocational training. They are isolated from society and life. This situation causes people to be very disappointed in life, to be depressive and to bear a deep grudge in their hearts toward society and other people."
Suicide attacks in Afghanistan have risen dramatically in recent years, according to Human Rights Watch, which released a report on the subject last month. The tactic is relatively new in the country, which saw only two suicide bombings in 2003. But the numbers grew from six such attacks in 2004, to 21 in 2005, to 136 in 2006. In the first 10 weeks of this year, there were 28.
Many cases of mental illness, mainly depression, can be judged from the condition of the bomber at the time of the attack, Yagadari said. "Their clothes and face are dirty. You can see that they are not interested in life."
It is difficult to track people with mental disabilities because the stigma of those illnesses is worse, if possible, than that attached to physical ailments.
"If you walk down the street ... you will notice that one of every three or four people is talking to himself," Nezami said.
Security analysts say the Taliban and other groups do not recruit suicide bombers from among their elite. "It's true that the Taliban don't use their best and brightest as suicide bombers," said Philip Halton, managing director of Safer Access, which provides expertise for humanitarian aid groups.
"They do look for disaffected members of society, not only those who are disabled but those who are exceedingly poor, and they target those people."
The case of Samiullah, the Internet cafe bomber, is slightly unusual in that he was middle-class.
Hamid Barakzai, a former high-school classmate, recalls bumping into his old friend several years after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Samiullah was still sporting the long beard advocated by the fundamentalist group.
"I asked him, 'Why haven't you cut off your beard? The Taliban are gone,' " Barakzai recalled. "He told me, 'I am al Qaeda. I will die al Qaeda. Next time, I might take some infidel with me to the other world.' I thought he was joking."
Shortly after that conversation, in May 2005, Samiullah blew himself up.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)