Indonesia

On October 12, 2002, two suicide bombers affiliated with Jemaah Islamiyyah (JI), a radical Islamist network that aims to create a regional Islamic superstate in Southeast Asia, bombed two nightclubs on the tourist island of Bali, killing 202 people, including 88 Australian tourists. The attacks, which had originally been planned in Thailand, were funded by KSM, who transferred funds to Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, Al Qaeda’s senior operative in Southeast Asia. The planning of the Bali attacks lasted for about eight months and was facilitated by means of a local infrastructure of operatives from Afghanistan who had previously acquired operational experience. In deciding to employ the tactic of suicide operations, the planners were heavily influenced by Al Qaeda, who had long preferred SAs to maximize both casualties as well as the element of fear.( Schweitzer and Ferber, "Al Qaeda and the Internationalization of Suicide Terrorism," 66-67.) Following the October 2002 bombings, one JI defendant blamed the attack as a result of imperialist, pro-Israeli, and anti-Muslim policy. Bin Laden, meanwhile, blamed “Australian imperialism” for the attack in a videotape he sent to the Al Jazeera satellite TV station. Australian intervention in East Timor, bin Laden claimed, was a usurpation of Muslim land. Schweitzer believes that blaming U.S. policies was the result of indoctrination and training JI members received in bin Laden-sponsored training camps in Afghanistan. (Yoram Schweitzer, "Global Jihad as Reaction to American Policy: A Dangerous Delusion," Tel AvivNotes No. 118, 9 December 2004).

On August 5, 2003, JI staged another suicide operation at the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, using a sports utility vehicle to maximize the effects of the blast. (Keith Bradsher, "Indonesia Bombing Kills at Least 10 in Midday Attack," New York Times, 6 August 2003, 1.) The attack was financed by the same funds that KSM had transferred to Hambali for the preceding year’s attacks in Bali. 13 months later, on September 9, 2004, two suicide bombers detonated themselves in a white delivery truck near the Australian embassy in Jakarta, killing nine people and injuring 180. On October 1, 2005, three suicide bombers struck Bali a second time, killing 19 people and wounding some 90. Many of the casualties were dining in the three restaurants that were targeted, one on a busy street and two located at a beachfront five miles away. Indonesian security services blamed two Malaysian JI operatives, Azhari Husin, and Muhammad Noordin Top, with masterminding the operation as well as the attacks on the Marriot hotel two years earlier. (Raymond Bonner and Jane Perlez, "Macabre Clues Advance Inquiry in Bali Attacks," New York Times, 3 October 2005, 1.) Husin detonated himself some five weeks after the bombings, when counter-terrorist units closed in on his safe house in Java. The Bali attacks, including the training of suicide bombers and the assembly of the backpack bombs used, were reportedly planned in the Philippines. (Raymond Bonner, "Slow Progress in Bali Inquiry Hints at Wilier Terror Groups," New York Times, 27 October 2005, 6.)

 

Casablanca, Morocco

On May 16, 2003, 14 suicide bombers attacked a Spanish-owned restaurant, a hotel, a Jewish cemetery, a Jewish community center, and an Italian restaurant in the Moroccan city of Casablanca. 12 of the attackers completed their mission, killing 33 innocent civilians in the process and injuring over 100 others. According to reports, the perpetrators were loosely linked to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM). Several of the would-be suicide bombers told their interrogators later that they were part of Ahl Sunna wal Jama’a, i.e., Salafi-oriented Sunni Muslims. (Alison Pargeter, “The Islamist Movement in Morocco,” Terrorism Monitor 3, no. 10, 2005).  The cell responsible for the attacks had formed around a nucleus of Moroccan veterans of terrorist training camps in Afghanistan who regarded bin Laden as an inspirational leader. (Thomas Omestad, “The Casbah Connection: Why Morocco Is Producing Some of the World’s Most Feared Terrorists,” U.S. News & World Report, 9 May 2005.) The suicide bombers, most of whom where from Sidi Moumen, a squalid shantytown (bidonville) outside central Casablanca, were reportedly under the ideological influence of Mohammed Fizazi, a Moroccan preacher imprisoned in Tangier for inspiring the bombings in Casablanca, and who has also been linked to some individuals involved in the 9/11 and the Madrid attacks of March 11, 2004. (Terry McDermott, “Moroccan Preacher Said to Have Met with 9/11 Plotters,” Los Angeles Times, 6 July, 2005.) They regularly prayed in local mosques where clerics preached jihad against infidels, and advocated the severing of ties to the Moroccan establishment. (Schweitzer and Ferber, “Al Qaeda and the Internationalization of Suicide Terrorism,” 68.) The nature of the connection of the Moroccan cell to Al Qaeda remains unknown. Morocco sentenced Abdelkarim Mejjati, a former medical student from Morocco who died in a gun battle in Saudi Arabia in April 2005, for 20 years in absentia for his involvement in the Casablanca attacks. A multi-lingual jihadist and skilled bomb-maker of privileged upbringing, Mejatti was also believed to have helped organize the network that blew up three residential compounds for foreign workers in Riyadh on May 12, 2003. The Washington Post reported in 2005 that Moroccan investigators, who at first believed that the operation was conceived and planned locally, subsequently changed their mind when they apprehended a suspect who divulged Mejjati’s name to interrogators, who concluded that those responsible for the attacks were taking cues from Al Qaeda’s top leadership. (Craig Whitlock, “Odyssey of an Al Qaeda Operative,” Washington Post, 2 May 2005, A1.)

 

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has long been a prime target for Al Qaeda and its affiliates, especially since the early 1990s, when the ruling family welcomed American troops on its soil. Beginning in 2003, Saudi Arabia was first targeted by SAs. In May, three cells of members of a terrorist network supported by Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, each consisting between 9 and 12 members, staged simultaneous attacks on three residential complexes in the capital Riyadh. The attacks combined traditional SA operations with rifle attacks against the compound, which housed mostly foreigners consulting Saudi businesses and the military. The attackers first gunned down guards at the complex, thus clearing the path for the entry of bomb-laden cars driven by suicide operatives. 29 people, including eight Americans, were killed in these attacks. (Schweitzer and Ferber, "Al Qaeda and the Internationalization of Suicide Terrorism," 70-71.) Additional SAs were staged first on November 8 of the same years at the al-Muhi residential complex in Riyadh, which housed foreign workers. The attacks killed 17 people and injured 122. The operation was similar to the May 2003 attack in that rifle firing units cleared the way for explosives-laden cars. Another attack occurred on April 21, 2004 at the headquarters of the Saudi special forces, which again took the form of a suicide car bombing, killing four people and injuring 150. An unknown group, the ‘Battalions of the Two Holy Sites on the Arabian Peninsula,’ posted an announcement on an Islamic website claiming that it was “following the path of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.” The attack was a turning point because unlike in previous attacks, most casualties were Saudi civilian employees, leading many Saudis to condemn these attacks. Future attacks would henceforth avoid mass-casualty attacks on Saudi citizens. (Craig Whitlock, "Al Qaeda Shifts Its Strategy in Saudi Arabia," Washington Post, 19 December 2004, 28.) In Khobar, on May 29, 2004, a cell consisting of four attackers attacked three Western oil company offices. Although it planned to detonate a suicide car bomb, the plan did not materialize and turned into a siege situation, in the course of which the attackers killed 16 hostages, including all non-Muslims. Seven months later to the day, terrorists detonated an explosives-laden car near the Ministry of the Interior through remote control, while two suicide bombers detonated a booby-trapped car that they tried to ram into a recruitment center of the Saudi Emergency Forces, who had recently begun to focus their work on counterterrorism. ("Car Bombers Target Saudi Security Units," Washington Post 2004 Neil MacFarquhar, "Suicide Bomber Attacks Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry," New York Times, 30 December 2004, 8.)

As Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri had frequently called for, Salafi-Jihadists also targeted the oil industry in an additional effort to undermine the Saudi royal family’s grip on Saudi Arabia and hit Western oil interests.(Specifically, bin Laden called for attacks against oil facilities in a December 2004 audio message, which was followed by Zawahiri in the autumn of 2005). A first SA against an oil-processing plant was foiled in February 2006 when Saudi security opened fire at two cars approaching the Abqaiq plant in the eastern Dammam province, causing the vehicles to detonate. (See Simon Henderson, "Al-Qaeda Attack on Abqaiq: The Vulnerability of Saudi Oil," PolicyWatch No. 1082, 28 February 2006).Shortly after the attempted attack, Al Qaeda assumed responsibility for the failed operation and promised to launch additional strikes on oil facilities to force “infidels” out of Saudi Arabia and prevent further “theft” of Muslim wealth by “Crusaders and Jews.”1 Yoram Schweitzer describes the relationship between Al Qaeda and the terrorist networks operating in the Arabian peninsula as one akin to a parent organization and its offshoots. The connection between the central Al Qaeda leadership and the Saudi branch, he writes, was maintained by senior commanders who worked for years closely with senior Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan. These commanders directed the networks operating on the peninsula after returning to Saudi Arabia. These commanders included Yousef al-Ayeri and Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin who, until their death, were chiefly responsible for importing the concept of self-sacrifice into the peninsula. Schweitzer concludes that “the adoption of suicide attacks as the leading mode of operation for terrorist activity in Saudi Arabia and the accompanying rhetoric appearing in claims of responsibility attests to the internalization of al-Qaeda’s principles and ideology by its affiliates.”2 These principles were also reflected in a video statement released by Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia’s production arm which featured Sheikh Sultan bin Bajad al-Oteibi (aka Abu Abdul Rahman al-Athari), who was purportedly killed in the attacks of December 29, 2004. Al-Oteibi laid out the reasons for Al Qaeda’s sustained attacks on Saudi Arabia, saying, “At this time, traitors have come to rule us, servants of America… they betrayed noble Jerusalem and gave it to the Jews, and opened up the country of the Two Holy Mosques to the soldiers of the Jews and Christians. Muslims, these rulers have allied the Jews and Christians, and helped them against the Muslims.” Al-Oteibi also suggested that the battle of the mujahideen extends far beyond Saudi Arabia: “As to our targets, and our path in battle: these pertain to the Jews and Christians. We will target their interests everywhere. We advise all Muslims and all wise infidels who are guarding these interests or who are working in them, to leave them and not even to come close to them. The Mujahideen might attack them at any moment.”4

 

Istanbul, Turkey

On November 15, 2003. two cars exploded at the Beth Israel and Neve Shalom synagogues in Istanbul. Five days later, on November 20, two nearly simultaneous trucks detonated at the British consulate and the local branch of HSBC Bank. The four bombings that rocked Istanbul killed 58 people and wounded 750 others. Connections of the local cell to Al Qaeda became evident soon after the attacks based on several arrests, including that of Fevzi Yitiz, who was arrested less than a month after the attacks near the Iranian border. Yitiz told his interrogators that two organizers of the Istanbul cell, Habib Aktas and Ibrahim Kus, met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 2002, expressing their interest to the Al Qaeda leaders that they wanted to stage an attack in Turkey for the sake of Jihad. Aktas, a Turkish citizen of Arab origin, appears to be the originator of the plan, and became the crucial connecting link between Al Qaeda’s core leadership and the local cell, and also provided the know-how for the bomb production.5 During Aktas’ visits to the burgeoning terrorist cells in Istanbul, much of his influence stemmed from his ongoing experience on the various jihadist battlefields, and his apparent connections with the Al Qaeda leadership. He benefited greatly from the prestige of being in touch with the commanders, as well as his personal religious charisma as a jihadist practitioner. Confession reports show that local operatives viewed him as an almost holy figure.5 Bin Laden reportedly suggested an attack at Incirlik air base or against U.S. or Israeli ships using the Mediterranenan port of Mersin. Stringent security at the air base and the Mersin harbor, however, made the attack too difficult to carry out. This led the conspirators, many of whom have trained in Afghanistan, to change the attack plans.6

Another central figure in the plot was Louai Sakka, who was arrested on August 6, 2005. Two days earlier, Sakka’s apartment blew up as he was assembling a bomb intended for an attack using an explosives-laden yacht which he wanted to steer into a cruise ship filled with American soldiers. After the Istanbul bombings, Sakka traveled to Iraq, where he was known as “Louai al-Turki” and participated in insurgent operations in Fallujah. An indictment released February 10,2006, charges that Sakka “proposed” the attacks, with specific approval from Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He provided all the funds for the attacks, “with the largest instalment delivered in a sock stuffed with euros from Saudi sympathizers,” according to the indictment. In Iraq, he helped organize the insurgent attack on Abu Ghraib, where other organizers of Istanbul bombings were detained.7 Possible motives for radical Islamists to attack Turkey are not difficult to fathom. Local militant Islamic groups such as the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders’ Front (IBDA/C) and the Turkish Hizballah, as well as global jihadists such as Al Qaeda hold Turkey in contempt for a variety of reasons. Following World War I, Atatürk transformed Turkey into a secular state and abolished first the sultanate and then the caliphate in 1924. More recently, Turkey’s orientation toward the West, such as its efforts to be included in the European Union; its status as the only Muslim state who is a member of NATO; its strong political, economic, and military ties to the United States and Israel; and its support of U.S. military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq have provided Al Qaeda with a variety of incentives to launch attacks on the most democratic of Muslim majority states.

 

Chechnya

The first suicide bombing in Chechnya took place on June 7, 2000, when a Chechen man and a Chechen woman detonated a bomb-laden truck at a checkpoint on the compound of the elite Omsk OMON unit at Alkhan-Yurt in Chechnya. The suicide attackers received support from other rebels who hid in a nearby forest, and fired at the Russian forces after the explosion. Only four days later, a former Russian soldier who converted to Islam carried out another SA at a checkpoint in Khankala, killing two senior OMON sergeants.8 Chechen rebels staged five more SAs on Russian positions on July 2 and July 3, in which at least 33 soldiers were killed, 84 wounded, and six more were missing.9 From the very outset, the Chechen conflict had elements of a global struggle. Rather than attempting to keep the focus on its Russian enemy, the Chechen rebels noted on their official website (www.qoqaz.net) after their first SA that the operation was meant as a message to all Muslims. The operation, according to the rebels, “was a cry that said no to the crimes against the Muslim Ummah, but will the people of the Ummah heed to this call and rush to support their brothers and sisters who are in need? Will the hearts of the believers come alive with this example of pure faith and courageous sacrifice?”10In the following years, several suicide attacks by Chechen groups were carried out, most of them by the so-called Black Widows—the only exclusively named female suicide bombing group that adheres to Salafi-Jihadist principles. On December 27, 2002, three Chechen bombers drove a truck and a car devastated a government center in the Chechen capital of Grozny that housed a pro-Russian regional government. On May 14, 2003, a woman suicide bomber who apparently intended to assassinate the pro-Russian leader of Chechnya, Ahmad Kadyrov, killed at least 15 people during a religious festival in Ilishkan. The attack came only two days after a truck bombing aimed at a compound housing Chechen officials in Znamenskoye had killed at least 59 people. Shamil Basayev, an Islamic warlord killed in early July 2006, claimed responsibility for both attacks.11 Roughly three weeks later, another woman bomber detonated herself near a bus carrying military workers from the town of Mozdok to a Russian air base, killing at least 18 people, including many women. On July 5, two women detonated themselves within ten minutes at the entrances of the Tushino Aerodrome, a north Moscow airfield, during a rock festival attended by 30,000 fans. The blasts killed at least 16 people and wounded perhaps four times as many. The bombs were equipped with ball bearings and metal fragments to maximize the effects of the blasts. In 2004, suicide bombers detonated themselves in the Moscow subway on February 2004, and outside a subway entrance in August of that year. Altogether, some 40 Chechen suicide bombers have staged approximately 26 SAs in Chechnya and Russia between June 2000 and December 2005. If we are to include the two hostage situations of the Moscow theater and the seizure of a middle school in Beslan—attacks that are not traditional SAs, but where the attackers professed an expectation to die in the course of the attack—the total number of Chechen suicide attackers is 112, including 48 women and 64 men, who have claimed the lives of 939 people and wounded 2913.12 Chechnya is a valuable case study in demonstrating how an originally localized conflict has adopted the global characteristics of Salafi-Jihadism. After the Soviet-Afghan war, Central Asian countries and the Caucasus were a favored destination for hundreds of recently unemployed Afghan Arabs, who wanted to recreate their victory against the Soviet Union. In the early 1990s, small groups of Afghan Arab fighters arrived in Chechnya, influenced by the conflicts in Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabach. In the subsequent decade and a half, this small group would have a tremendous effect in shaping the conflict and the struggle against Russia that would far surpass their relatively small numbers.13 Along with their manpower, these fighters brought with them experience, money, and the Salafi-Jihadist ideology which at the time was relatively unknown in the Sufi-dominated region.14

Despite the predominance of the Sufi tradition of Islam in Chechnya and the relative indifference to Salafism, Salafi-Jihadist ideology was able to gain a foothold in Chechnya when the need for money to face the militarily superior Russian enemy became evident. That money was provided mostly by Saudis, with the understanding that the Saudis would be allowed to build mosques and schools in Chechnya that would promote Wahhabism in Chechnya.15 The arrival of the Afghan Arabs was accompanied by the distribution of Salafi-Jihadist (known locally mostly as Wahhabist) literature, including the wide circulation of a book called One God, which rejected local cultural influences of Islam. 16 Foreign funds helped establish Wahhabist schools and mosques where students and preachers were urged not only to repel the Russians from Chechnya, but to join the jihad against all infidels in the name of God.17The Afghan Arabs and subsequent jihadists they attracted from a variety of places, some of the 9/11 hijackers, for example, had wanted to fight in Chechnya until they were ordered to participate in the ‘planes operation’ of 9/11, were relatively scattered until 1995, when the foreign fighters organized under Omar ibn al-Khattab, a Jordanian jihadist who had fought in Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Khattab had reportedly trained in Al Qaeda-affiliated training camps in Afghanistan, and shared personnel and resources with the Al Qaeda leader. Once in Chechnya, Khattab became operations chief under Shamil Basayev, the overall commander who had close personal ties with bin Laden.18 Following the end of the first Russian-Chechen war in 1996, foreign jihadis were able to expand their influence. The Chechen government, expecting the confrontation with Russia to resume at a future time, asked Khattab to establish a center in which both local and foreign fighters would be trained in such tactics as mine laying and ambushing, while receiving a Wahhabist indoctrination. Some 2,500 fighters were trained in these camps between the first and second war, according to estimates by Russian authorities.19After 1997, a growing number of Chechen commanders adopted Wahhabism as their creed and slowly helped turn the Chechen struggle from one dominated mostly by ethnonationalist motivations to one in which nationalist motivations are joined by religious motives. This confluence of local and global characteristics is visible in the current, second installment of the Chechen-Russian war, which began in 1999.20

 

Afghanistan

SAs were introduced in Afghanistan with the killing of Ahmed Shah Masood, the commander of the Northern Alliance, on September 9, 2001. From the fall of the Taliban until May 2005, the use of this tactic was relatively rare, with only five Sas perpetrated mostly against the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).21 The number of Sas jumped in mid-2005, when the Taliban began employing Sas with growing frequency mostly against NATO targets. Afghans, however, were targeted as well. On June 1, a suicide bomber detonated himself at a funeral ceremony at a mosque in the southern city of Kandahar, killing 19 people, including the Kabul police chief, and wounded over 50. By the end of 2005, over 15 Sas had targeted mostly military forces, including a British Embassy convoy, a convoy of Afghan soldiers, German peacekeepers, as well as U.S. and Canadian forces.22 According to UN officials in Afghanistan, in the first nine months of 2006, over 60 Sas were executed in Afghanistan, with the number of civilian deaths rising to 150 in that period.23 On January 5, 2006, a suicide bomber attempted to assassinate U.S. ambassador Ronald Neumann, who was visiting U.S. troops in the town of Tirin Kot. He failed to hit the ambassador, but killed ten Afghans and wounded 50 more in the process. 11 days later, the southern border town of Spin Boldak was the arena of the most fatal SA in Afghanistan to that date, when 22 people were killed when a suicide bomber rammed a motorcycle into a crowd during a wrestling match. The attack came a day after Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry was killed in Kandahar by a suicide attacker. High-profile Sas continued into the fall of 2006. In August, Sas in Kandahar and Helmand provinces killed nearly 40 people.24 In September 2006, Sas targeted an American military vehicle, killing 16; a provincial governor and close friend of President Hamid Karzai; a NATO patrol, killing four Canadians; and a security checkpoint near the governor’s office in Lashkar Gah in southern Helmand.25 In some of the cases, SA cells have used mosques to plan their operations and to store weapons and explosives.26

Sas in Afghanistan were adopted by Taliban first of all for their tactical efficiency. Asked by a Christian Science Monitor reporter why the Taliban adopted suicide missions, Taliban spokesman Mohammad Hanif answered, “this is an effective way of destroying our enemy. It is a tactic that has been used by mujahideen all over the world.”27 Clearly, however, the Taliban uses this tactic to increase its visibility as well. The Taliban’s goal is to topple the regime of Hamid Karzai, who is regarded as a puppet of the United States, and to drive out foreign forces from Afghanistan. The composition of Afghan suicide bombers remains unclear, but it is all but certain that both Afghans as well as non-Afghans are among the self-described martyrs. In early February 2006, Afghan police arrested a citizen of Mali who apparently planned to assassinate a governor of a northern province. A Bangladeshi was reportedly arrested in connection with Sas a day later.28 In February 2006, the New York Times reported that arrests of interrogations of suspects believed to be involved in the series of Sas that rocked Afghanistan in the Winter of 2005/2006 revealed that the attacks were orchestrated from Pakistan by members of the ousted Taliban government. According to interrogation tapes, suspects said that the bombers are recruited in the Pakistani city of Karachi and are then moved to safe houses on the Pakistani side of the Afghan-Pakistan border, before being transferred into Afghanistan. The tapes appeared to confirm what Afghan officials had long claimed, namely that most suicide bombers appeared to be foreigners. A Taliban spokesman, however, quickly dismissed these claims as government propaganda, and insisted that all the suicide bombers were Afghan.29 According to an October 2006 report in the Sunday Times, captured Taliban fighters and failed suicide bombers told Afghan security services that they had been trained by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).30 In the few videos featuring wills of suicide bombers who have attacked targets in Afghanistan, Salafi-Jihadist ideology is clearly reflected. One video released features the will of a suicide bomber who introduces himself as Amanullah Ghazi from the province of Khost. Ghazi decries the “infidels” who have “defiled” Afghanistan, where they are “misleading” Muslims from the righteous path. He then invokes fard ayn, the notion that each Muslim must join the jihad if Islam is under attack, saying, “it is the duty of every Muslim to sacrifice oneself in the path of God.” Ghazi also urges other Muslims to follow his lead, adding that the Quran offers the martyr paradise. “Inshallah, I will meet you in paradise,” Ghazi says.31Another video features an unidentified suicide bomber who attacked Canadian soldiers in October 2005, and features footage of Osama bin Laden calling for the expulsion of “infidels” from Islamic lands through jihad.32 While no solid information about the composition of suicide bombers in Afghanistan exists, the Taliban’s use of Sas, especially in 2006, appeared increasingly sophisticated and more closely resembling the use of this tactic in Iraq. In Afghanistan, the growing sophistication is reflected in a rising number of fatalities of Sas, which in the course of 2006 increasingly claimed double-digit death tolls. Military and intelligence officials in Afghanistan quoted in the New York Times, however, were not sure whether the tactics and technologies used in Afghanistan have been imported from Iraq, or if Afghan insurgents merely copied the tactics used.33

 

Egypt

Beginning in 2004, a number of devastating SAs targeted Egypt, the birthplace of the jihadist movement. On October 7, 2004, three suicide bombers targeted two popular Sinai resorts, killing 34 people, including 13 Israeli vacationers, and injured some 170 others. One suicide bomber detonated a car bomb at the Taba Hilton, which led to most fatalities. A second suicide bomber detonated himself at bungalow campgrounds at Ras a-Sultan, while a third attacker died close by when his car bomb detonated prematurely before reaching its target.34 On April 7, 2005, a suicide bomber detonated himself at Cairo’s main bazaar as he fled the authorities, killing two French tourists and a U.S. citizen.35 Nine months later on the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula, on July 23, 2005, three powerful explosions hit the popular Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing at least 64 people and wounding over 150 in the most deadly terrorist attack in Egyptian history. Two suicide attackers detonated bomb-laden cars near the city’s ‘Old Market’ bazaar and the Ghazala Gardens Hotel on the city’s beachfront. A third suicide bomber detonated a suitcase filled with explosives near a taxi rank. Although several groups linked to Al Qaeda took responsibility for the attacks, and despite reports of heightened Al Qaeda activity on the Sinai peninsula,36 Egyptian authorities initially insisted the bombers, who reportedly were from Al Arish, were Egyptians of Bedouin origin with no apparent links to international organizations.37 In March 2006, however, as the investigation into the bombings proceeded, Egyptian authorities began acknowledging links between the local Bedouin cell responsible for the bombing to Al Tawhid w’al Jihad, a group with links to international Islamists. The authorities also suggested that the cell responsible for the Sharm el-Sheikh attacks was also responsible for the 2004 bombings in Taba.38

The next major SA in Egypt was targeted at the resort town of Taba on the Gulf of Aqaba. The attack, which occurred on April 24, 2006, killed at least 23 people and injured over 80, and bore all the hallmarks of an attack organized by, or at least inspired, by Al Qaeda.39 Two days later, two bombers targeted Egyptian police and a U.S.-led multinational peacekeeping force, but killed only themselves in the process.40 It remains unknown whether the SAs in Egypt that began in 2004 have been planned and executed by local Egyptian Islamists, perhaps of Bedouin origins, nationalists, international jihadists like Al Qaeda, or perhaps a combination of local elements holding a grudge against the Egyptian regime and a steering hand of Al Qaeda. That Al Qaeda regards the Mubarak regime as apostate is undisputed. An attack on Egypt would certainly conform with the priority of traditional jihadist groups on the near enemy, as called for by radical Islamist preachers such as Faraj and Zawahiri prior to his adoption of the notion of the primacy of attacks against the far enemy.41 It cannot be ruled out that Bedouin elements, particularly those in the northern part of the Sinai, who are impoverished and whose relationships with the regime in Cairo have been particularly bad, have decided to adopt violence to express their resentment against the regime.42 Traditional resentments against the regime are harbored not only due to economic destitution, over 90% of the local Bedouin population depends on low-paying, seasonal work, but also because of Cairo’s interference in local and tribal affairs, a gross infraction in a region where tribal identity far outweighs national patriotism. Disillusionment and hostility toward the national government has led many young Bedouins to adopt Islam as their main identity.43 If Bedouin tribes from the north are responsible for the bombings, as the Mubarak regime claims, they are likely influenced by the message of Al Qaeda, and are possibly supported financially and/or materially from abroad.44

 

Pakistan

Suicide attacks, once a rarity in Pakistan, are now a common tactic used to attack Pakistani government and military targets, foreigners, as well as the Shia community. Pakistan which, according to Ahmed Rashid, “remains the global center for terrorism and for the remnants of Al Qaeda,”45 is also believed to support jihadist groups in Kashmir, some of which have begun to adopt suicide terrorism tactics in April 2000.46 On November 19, 1995, a suicide bomber rammed a bomb-laden truck into the Egyptian Embassy in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, killing 15 people and wounding at least 59 more. Though aimed at Egypt, the attack, which was carried out by the Egyptian Islamic Group, was the first suicide operation in Pakistan.47 The first Pakistani suicide bomber was a middle-class woman who, on November 6, 2000, entered the advertising section of Pakistan’s most widely circulated newspaper, asking to place a small ad. She detonated shortly after placing a call on her mobile phone in which she was heard saying, “I am in the right place.”48

Between 2000 and mid-2003, most SAs attributed to Pakistanis or to groups supported by Pakistan occurred in Kashmir or targeted foreigners in Pakistan. SAs were first employed by radical Islamist groups in Kashmir and India beginning in April 2000. On December 25, 2000, a 24-year old Muslim from Birmingham who had joined the Salafi-Jihadist Jaesh-e-Muhammad (JeM), rammed a booby-trapped car into the Indian army’s headquarters in Srinagar, killing 9 people.49 Almost a year later, on December 13, 2001, a spectacular SA targeted the Indian parliament, killing seven people. India blamed Lashkar-e-Taibeh (Army of the Pure, LeT) for the attack, a group that had declared war on India and aims to drive the world’s largest democracy from the predominantly Muslim region of Kashmir, a border area that India claims for itself.50

See Case Study: Kashmir P.1 and P.2:

 

A number of radical Islamist groups would employ SAs against foreigners, Shia groups, and Pakistani government targets. On May 8, 2002, eleven French citizens were killed along with 3 Pakistanis, when a suicide bomber detonated himself in a car parked next to the Sheraton hotel in the port city of Karachi, which is frequented by foreign businessmen.51 Some five weeks later, a suicide car bomb detonated outside the U.S. consulate in Karachi, killing 11 and injuring over 20. In March 2006, a U.S. foreign service officer, David Foy, and three others were killed in a SA. Additional attacks against American and other foreign targets were prevented by Pakistani security services.52 High-profile SAs against Shias, who account for roughly 15% of Pakistan’s 140 million citizens, began on July 4, 2003, when three suicide bombers detonated themselves during Friday prayers at the Hazara Mosque in the southwestern city of Quetta in an attack that killed 47 Shia Muslims and injured over 60. Lashkar-e-Jangvi (LeJ), a radical anti-Shia terrorist outfit linked to the Sipah-e-Sahaba group, was held responsible for this and many other attacks against Shias that were to follow.53 Other SAs on Shiite mosque took place in February 2004, when 60 Shiites died after two suicide bombers attacked a religious procession in Quetta, in May 2004 in Karachi, in an attack that killed 15 and wounded ten times as many,54 as well as in October 2004, when 30 Shias were killed during Friday prayers in Sialkot. The attacks on the Shia spurred a number of Shii counter-attacks on Sunnis, thus raising the specter of ethnic strife.55 Similar attacks targeting the Shia community and its leaders occurred throughout 2005 and 2006.56

Pakistani groups, perhaps aided by foreign Jihadists, also made several attempts on the lives of key government targets, including individuals and Pakistani security forces. On December 25, 2003, two suicide attackers driving pickup trucks carrying some 50 pounds of explosives attempted to ram President Musharraf’s motorcade on a main road in Rawalpindi. The assassination attempt was the second on the Pakistani President in 11 days, and the third attempt on his life using SAs.57 On July 30, 2004, Pakistan’s designated prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in a suicide bombing that killed five people, including Aziz’ driver.58 In the summer of 2006, SAs and the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against government security forces also surged in Waziristan, in Pakistan’s tribal belt.59 It is also worth mentioning that radical Islamists and Salafi-Jihadists of Pakistani origin have played prominent roles in SAs in the West. In the United Kingdom, three of the four London bombers, Mohammed Siddique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, and Hasib Mir Hussein, were of Pakistani origin. British citizens of Pakistani origin also dominated the composition of over 20 would-be-bombers involved in the August 2006 plot to detonate airliners en route from Western Europe to the United States. Many of the suspects in that plot had close family ties to Pakistan residing in Pakistan, suggesting an apparently close ideological and organizational affinity of British suspects of Pakistani origins to elements in Pakistan proper.60

Pakistani journalist Nasra Hassan explains that SAs resonate with many Pakistanis because of a prevailing environment of humiliation and resulting rage, coupled with sermons by Arab militants who fled Afghanistan and an endorsement by Pakistani clerics. 61 Based on interviews she conducted with numerous leaders, planners, and trainers of groups sponsoring Sas, Hassan concludes that on an individual level, Pakistani suicide bombers cannot be distinguished from overall Pakistani males. Hassan’s data shows that most Pakistani suicide bombers are between 18-30, mostly from the middle, lower-middle, and poorer classes, and predominantly single. All cited Osama bin Laden as a hero. They justified their willingness to perpetrate martyrdom operations with the need to defend Islam and a desire to exact revenge for the betrayal of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as well as for the government’s bowing to external pressure. The issues of Palestine, Jerusalem, Iraq, and Chechnya were not cited. Hassan also found that most suicide bombers had obtained training in special camps or had previously fought in Afghanistan, Kashmir, or both. The vast majority of Pakistani suicide bombers returned to jihad after a period of break, during which most were gainfully employed.62 In terms of organizations, Hassan writes that the jihadi groups in Pakistan involved in Sas are closely linked to other groups in Pakistan and abroad. Several of these organizations cooperate closely with each other, oftentimes loaning or bartering militans, expertise, supplies, and funds to their allies. At times, members of different groups swarm together to execute a SA, and group members often switch affiliations.63

 

Uzbekistan

In April 2004, the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), an organization responsible for a number of violent attacks in Uzbekistan, carried out a series of SAs around Tashkent and Bukhara, in which 47 people were killed. The attacks targeted both political and civilian targets, including local government offices and a crowded market. An offshoot of the Islamic Movement of Turkestan (formerly the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, IMU), the IJG is on the U.S. State Department’s list of Specially Designated Global Terrorist Groups. A statement in which the IJG claimed responsibility for simultaneous bombing attacks against the U.S. and Israeli embassies and the Uzbek Prosecutor General reveals the Salafi-Jihadist nature of IJG”A group of young Muslims executed martyrdom operations that put fear in the apostate government and its infidel allies, the Americans and Jews. The mujahidin belonging to Islamic Jihad Group attacked both the American and Israeli embassies as well as the court building where the trials of a large number of the brothers from the Group had begun. These martyrdom operations that the group is executing will not stop, God willing. It is for the purpose of repelling the injustice of the apostate government and supporting the jihad of our Muslim brothers in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, the Hijaz, and in other Muslim countries ruled by infidels and apostates.”64
 

1. Syed Rashid Husain, Al-Khobar, and Peter Conradi, "Al-Qaeda Pledges War on Saudi Oil Plants," Sunday Times, 26 February 2006.

2. Schweitzer and Ferber, "Al Qaeda and the Internationalization of Suicide Terrorism," 72.

3. See also Whitlock, "Al Qaeda Shifts Its Strategy in Saudi Arabia," 28.

4. "Blood That Will Not Have Flown in Vain - a Video Presentation of the Martyrs of Saudi Arabia, Issued by Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia," SITE Institute, 28 April 2006.

5. Former Turkish counterterrorism official, interview with the author, Istanbul, Turkey, 10 June 2005.

6. Former Turkish counterterrorism official, interview with the author, Istanbul, Turkey, 10 June 2005.

7. Selcan Hacaoglu, "Bin Laden Proposed Attacks on U.S. Military Base in Turkey, but Militants Switched Targets," Associated Press, 17 December 2003.

8. Karl Vick, "A Bomb-Builder, 'out of the Shadow'," Washington Post, 6 February 2006.

9.Reuven Paz, "Suicide Terrorist Operations in Chechnya: An Escalation of the Islamist Struggle," International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), 20 June 2000.

10. Dodge Billingsley, "Chechen Rebels Hone Tactics for Long Haul," Jane's Intelligence Review 13, no. 2 (1 February 2001).

11. Quoted in Paz, "Suicide Terrorist Operations in Chechnya," ICT, 20 June 2000.

12. Michael Wines, "19 Die as Suicide Bomber Destroys Bus near Chechnya," New York Times, 6 June 2003, A1.

13. The numbers here are based not on the NSSC database, but on data provided in Anne Speckhard and Khapta Ahkmedova, "The Making of a Martyr: Chechen Suicide Terrorism," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29, no. 5 (July-August 2006). On the theater takeover, see especially Anne Speckhard et al., "Research Note: Observations of Suicidal Terrorists in Action," Terrorism and Political Violence 16, no. 2 (2004).

14. Lorenzo Vidino, "The Arab Foreign Fighters and the Sacralization of the Chechen Conflict," Al Nakhlah (Spring 2006), 1.

15. Dmitri V. Trenin, Aleksei V. Malashenko, and Anatol Lieven, Russia’s Restless Frontier: The Chechnya Factor in Post-Soviet Russia (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,2004).  

16. Vidino, "The Arab Foreign Fighters and the Sacralization of the Chechen Conflict," 2.

17. Speckhard and Ahkmedova, "The Making of a Martyr," 445.

18. Ibid..

19. Mark Riebling and R.P. Eddy, "Jihad@Work: Behind the Moscow Theater Attack," National Review Online, 24 October 2002).

20. Trenin, Malashenko, and Lieven, Russia’s Restless Frontier: The Chechnya Factor in Post-Soviet Russia , 94.

21. Carl Robichaud, "Iraq Tactics Hit Afghanistan," Afghanistan Watch, 9 June 2005.

22. Carlotta Gall and Eric Schmitt, "Taliban Step up Afghan Bombings and Suicide Attacks," New York Times, 21 October 2005, 3. Carlotta Gall, "Suicide Bombers Hit Peacekeepers in Afghanistan," New York Times, 15 November 2005, 17; David Rhode, "Suicide Bomber Kills Two Afghans," New York Times 2005, 13; Carlotta Gall, "2 Die in Attack on Canadians in Afghanistan," New York Times, 5 December 2005, 8.

23. Carlotta Gall, "Attacks in Afghanistan Grow More Frequent and Lethal," New York Times, 27 September 2006, 15.

24. "Afghan Suicide Bombing Kills 17," BBC News, 28 August 2006; "Kabul Suicide Bomb Hits Us Convoy," BBC News, 8 September 2006.

25. Carlotta Gall and Abdul Waheed Wafa, "Suicide Bomber Kills 16 in Kabul near Embassy," New York Times, 9 September 2006, 1; Carlotta Gall, "Suicide Bomber Kills a Governor in Afghanistan," New York Times, 11 September 2006, 1; "Canadians Die in Afghan Bombing," BBC News, 18 September 2006; Gall,"Attacks in Afghanistan Grow More Frequent and Lethal," 15.

26. Waliullah Rahmani, "Afghan Authorities Apprehend Leaders of Kabul Suicide Cell," Terrorism Focus 3, no. 39 (10 October 2006).

27. Scott Baldauf, "Taliban Turn to Suicide Attacks," Christian Science Monitor, 3 February 2006, 1.

28. Omid Marzban, "The Foreign Makeup of Afghan Suicide Bombers," Terrorism Focus 3, no. 7 (21 February 2007).

29. Gall, "Afghan Attacks, Tied to Taliban, Point to Pakistan," , 1.

30. Christina Lamb, "Nato Chief Will Front Musharraf to Demand Taliban Leader Omar's Arrest," Agence France Press, 9 October 2006, 9.

31. Hekmat Karzai, "Afghanistan and the Logic of Suicide Terrorism," IDSS Commentaries 20 (27 March 2006).

32. "A Video Produced by Al-Sahab Media Depicting a Suicide Bomber's Will and Operation Targeting American Forces in Kabul, Afghanistan," SITE Institute, 30 January 2006.

33. Gall, "Attacks in Afghanistan Grow More Frequent and Lethal," 15.

34. Matthew Gutman and Herb Keinon, "Idf Concludes Sinai Rescue Operation. 13 Israelis among 32 Bombing Victims," Jerusalem Post, 11 October 2004.

35. Heba Saleh, "Cairo Attacks: Police Hold 200," Financial Times, 2 May 2005, 8.

36. Zeev Schiff, "Analysis: Dahab Terror Attack Indicative of Egypt's Failure," Haaretz, 25 April 2006.

37. "Egypt Suicide Bombers Were Bedouin Islamists," Agence France Press, 3 September 2005.

38. Ashraf Sweilam, "Egyptians Kill Three Bombing Suspects," Associated Press, 21 November 2005; "Egypt Names Islamist Group Suspected of Sinai Attacks," Agence France Press, 26 March 2006.

39. Yassin Musharbash, "Bin Laden's Lange Leine," Spiegel Online, 25 April 2006.

40. Daniel Williams, "Two Bombers Target Forces in Egypt," Washington Post, 27 April 2006, A14.

41. Reuven Paz, "From Riyadh 1995 to Sinai 2004: The Return of Al-Qaeda to the Arab Homeland," PRISM Occasional Papers 2, no. 3 (October 2004).

42. Chris Zambelis, "Egypt Attacks May Indicate Emerging Sinai Bedouin Insurgency," Terrorism Focus 3, no. 19 (17 May 2006).

43. Michael Slackman, "Out of Desert Poverty, a Caldron of Rage in the Sinai," New York Times, 7 May 2006, 6.

44. See also Ely Karmon, "Egypt as a New Front of Al Qaeda," International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), 5 May 2006.

45 "Spiegel Interview with Pakistani Scholar Ahmed Rashid," Spiegel Online, 22 July 2005. Available at http://www.spiegel.de/international/1,1518,366371,00.html

46. For an excellent overview over jihadi groups in Pakistan and Kashmir, see Stern, Terror in the Name of God , Chapters 5 and 8. See also Hassan Abbas, Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America's War on Terror (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2005).

47. Kathy Gannon, "Pakistan Suicide Bomber Kills 15; Blast Rocks Egyptian Embassy," Chicago Sun-Times, 20 November 1995, 24.

48. Esther Oxford, "Pakistan Grapples with Menace of Suicide Bombers," Independent, 30 November 2000,18.

49. Sudha Ramachandran, "Killers Turn to Suicide," Asia Times, 15 October 2004.

50. Celia W. Dugger, "Group in Pakistan Is Blamed by India for Suicide Raid," New York Times, 15 December 2001, 1.

51. Farhan Bokhari and Edward Luce, "Pakistan Bombers Kill 44 at Mosque Suicide Attack on Shias," Financial Times, 5 July 2003, 11.

52. "Pakistanis Say They Foiled Anti-U.S. Plot," Associated Press, 16 December 2002.

53. David Rhode, "47 Pakistanis Die in Attack on Shiite Rites," New York Times, 5 July 2003, 1. For more on Lashkar-e-Jangvi’s use of suicide attacks, see Nasra Hassan, "Suicide Terrorism," in The Roots of Terrorism, ed. Louise Richardson (New York: Routledge, 2006).And expecially out two part Case Study above.

54. Kamran Khan, "Bomber in Karachi Mosque Kills 15," Washington Post, 8 May 2004, A11.

55. Ramachandran, "Killers Turn to Suicide," Asia Times, 15 October 2004.

56. Kamran Khan, "Suicide Bombing in Pakistan Kills 20; Shiites Targeted at Mosque in Capital," Washington Post, 28 May 2005, A18; Riaz Khan, "Suicide Bombing and Riots Kill 27 as Pakistan Celebrates Muslim Festival," Independent, 10 February 2006, 43; Salman Masood, "A Top Shiite Leader in Pakistan Dies in a Suicide Bombing," New York Times, 15 July 2006, 3.

57. Matthew Pennington, "Musharraf Survives Another Suicide Attack," Gazette, 26 December 2003, A20.

58. Farhan Bokhari, "Pakistan Pm-Elect Survives Suicide Attack," Financial Times, 31 July 2004, 8.

59. Sohail Abdul Nasir, "Insurgents Switch Tactics in Waziristan," Terrorism Focus 3, no. 24 (20 June 2006).

60. Yassin Musharbash, "Die Pakistan-Connection," Spiegel Online, 11 August 2006. Available at http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,431334,00.html.

61. Hassan, "Suicide Terrorism," 33.

62. Ibid., 38-39.

63. Ibid., 34.

64. "Islamic Jihad Group (Uzbekistan)," Terrorism Knowledge Base. Available online at http://www.tkb.org.

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