Suicide attacks: Logistics, economics, psychology

According to police official the price of a suicide bomber varies from one million to 2.5 million.

PESHAWAR:

What is clear is that many suicide bombers are emerging from the same areas that drone attacks target. A former high-ranking police official, who has been a part of almost all investigations of suicide bombings in K-P and has been involved in a covert operation to unravel the nexus, told The Express Tribune: “The main role in a suicide attack is always that of the handler ... usually when a bomber travels from the tribal belt he/she does not have any explosives, lodging or transport. The target and the suicide jacket are provided by handlers locally”. He added that officials also discovered funding for such attacks was taking place through Afghanistan via illegal money transactions usually done in the Hundi jewellery market in Peshawar.

Although the concentration of suicide attacks in a particular zone in the northwest indicates that the chain of command involved in such blasts has been obstructed, the level of economic and psychological exploitation remains highly disturbing.

Bombers are ‘bought’ from poor families. “The price of a bomber varies from one million to 2.5 million,” the police official reveals.

But that’s not all. Investigations have revealed that children who are kidnapped are first raped, consistently tortured physically and psychologically, and are finally ‘helped’ to escape by a saintly figure who appears out of nowhere.

“He/she is told that their body and soul are polluted and the only way to cleanse it is to serve their religion in the form of a suicide attack,” said the official.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 5^th, 2012.