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Morning Edition, October 15, 2007 - There have been at least 110 suicide attacks
in Afghanistan this year, more than in any other country except Iraq.
Most of the Afghan bombings are linked to the Taliban, but the identity of
the recruits is often a mystery.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai
and his security officials claim the attackers are foreigners, often from Pakistan.
But a recent United Nations report says that bombers who were caught before
they could carry out their attacks were overwhelmingly Afghan.
Whatever their nationality, many of the bombers have one major thing in common.
A senior Afghan doctor who examines their remains finds that most of them
were disabled or sick.
In his classroom at Kabul
Medical University,
Dr. Yusef Yadgari keeps
the eyeball of a suicide bomber in a glass jar. Attached to the eye is a
tumor that, Yadgari says, left the attacker
partially blind.
It is one of many ailments the Afghan pathologist says he has found while
autopsying the remains of bombers who carried out attacks in Kabul, Afghanistan,
during the past three years. Some were missing limbs before the blasts.
Others suffered from cancer. One had leprosy.
80 Percent Have Physical, Mental Disabilities
Based on such autopsies, Yadgari estimates that at least
three of every five bombers suffer from a physical ailment or disability.
Adding those who suffer from mental illnesses, the number of sick and
disabled bombers climbs to more than 80 percent, he says.
"They are probably resentful because in Afghan society they are
outcasts," Yadgari says. "They hold a
grudge because many of them can't get a job. So, to make money for their
families, they agree to become suicide bombers."
Yadgari says guessing the bombers' motivation is
easy, but identifying who they are is a lot tougher.
Police say the bombers never carry identification, and their remains are
rarely claimed.
Christine Fair, who co-authored a United Nations report released in September
on Afghanistan's
suicide attacks, says there are other factors that make it difficult to
figure out who the bombers are.
She says Afghan investigations into suicide bombings leave a lot to be
desired.
Afghan Gen. Nik Mohammed Nikzad,
who heads crime scene investigations here, agrees. He complains that by the
time his team is permitted to enter the scene, evidence has often been
compromised or removed - sometimes by Western soldiers.
Afghan Bombers Not Celebrated
Fair says another obstacle is that Afghan suicide bombers are not celebrated
like their counterparts in other Arab nations. Afghan bombers are not
featured on posters or in videos as martyrs, and their remains are not
carried through town in raucous funeral parades.
"Many parents don't even seem to know that their child or their relative
blew themselves up in this act," Fair says.
She says there is another difference between bombers in Afghanistan
and other countries. A bomber in Afghanistan kills an average of
three victims, compared with an average of 12 elsewhere. Also, United Nations
interviews with would-be bombers in Afghanistan have found that most
are young and poorly educated.
"So, the good news is that they are not as lethal as they are in other
theaters. The bad news is it's not really clear what it would take to get the
campaign of suicide attacks to abate," Fair says.
University student Qais Barakzai
believes there is nothing that could have stopped his friend from blowing
himself up two years ago in Kabul.
Barakzai says Qari Sami
was a brooding loner who was upset about the Taliban's ouster.
Barakzai says his friend grew a Taliban-style beard
and wore traditional baggy tunics and trousers, shunning the Western jeans
and shirts preferred by other university students.
"He was depressed. He would fight with people. He was emotional,
especially when it came to religious issues," Barakzai
recalls.
He says his friend took antidepressants daily, but they failed to lift his mood.
Sami talked of joining the Taliban in waging holy war, or jihad, after
graduation, but never said he had been recruited as a suicide bomber, Barakzai says.
In May 2005, the young man walked into the Park Internet café and blew
himself up. He killed a U.N. worker from Myanmar and an Afghan customer
and wounded five others.
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