Robert Fisk: Suicide bomber opens 'door to jihad'

BAGHDAD - Sergeant Ali Jaffar Moussa Hamadi al-Nomani was the first Iraqi combatant ever known to stage a suicide attack.

Not even during the uprising against British rule did an Iraqi kill himself in order to destroy his enemies.

Al-Nomani was also a Shia Muslim -- a member of the same sect whom the Americans faithfully believed to be their secret ally in their invasion of Iraq.

Even the Iraqi government initially wondered how to deal with this extraordinary phenomenon, caught between their desire to dissociate themselves from an event that might remind the world of Osama bin Laden, and their determination to threaten the Americans with more such attacks.

The details of the 50-year old army sergeant's life are few but nonetheless intriguing.

He was a soldier in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and volunteered to fight in the 1991 Gulf War, dubbed the "Mother of All Battles" by the Iraqi leader who believes he was the victor.

Then, over-age though he was for any further fighting, al-Nomani volunteered yet again to defend his country from the Anglo-American invasion. And so it was, without telling his commanding officer and in his own car, he drove into the US Marine checkpoint just outside Najaf.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein immediately awarded him the Military Medal (1st Class) and the "Mother of All Battles".

The dead man left behind him five children, a widow and a place in the history of Iraqi resistance to his country's 2,000 years of invasions. Typically, a US spokesman said that the attack "looks and feels like terrorism" although since al-Nomani was attacking an occupation army and his target was a military one no Arab would ever believe this.

Within hours of his death, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was talking like a Palestinian or Hizballah leader, emphasising the inequality of arms between the Iraqis and the Americans.

"The US administration is going to turn the whole world into people who are prepared to die for their nations" he said.

"...All they can do now is turn themselves into bombs. If the B-52 bombs can now kill 500 or more in our war, then I'm sure that some operations by our freedom fighters will be able to kill 5,000."

It was clear what this meant: the Iraqi leadership was just as surprised at al-Nomanis suicide attack as were his American victims.

But the Americans would do well to understand what this new development means.

Suicide bombers-- whether they be the Shia Muslim Lebanese successfully evicting Israel's army of occupation or the Palestinians destroying Israel's sense of security --are the ultimate weapon of the Arabs. The United States first understood its power when suicide bombers struck the American embassy in Beirut in 1983, then the Marine Barracks in Beirut on October 23 the same year where 241 American servicemen died.

Only when Arabs bent on a far more devastating suicide mission carried out their attacks on September 11, 2001, did Washington finally realise that there was no effective defence against such tactics.

In a strange way, therefore, 11th September at last finds a symbolic connection with Iraq. While the American attempts to link Saddam's regime with Osama bin Laden turned out to be fraudulent, the anger which the United States has unleashed is real, and has been met with the one weapon the Americans fear most.

The majority of suicide bombers are younger that al-Nomani and unmarried.

But someone must have helped him rig the explosives in his car and taught him how to set off the detonator.

And if this was not the Iraqis, as they claim, then was there an organisation involved of which both the Americans and the Iraqis know nothing? There was some talk by Vice President Ramadan of "the martyr's moment of sublimity" -- an expression hitherto unheard of in the Baathist lexicon.

General Hazim al-Rawi of the Ministry of Defence recalled that the dead man bore the same name as "the Imam Ali"; and announced that the new "Martyr Ali has opened the door to Jihad". Suddenly, it seems, Islam has intruded into this very nationalistic war of liberation -- for that is what it is called here -- against the Americans.

And you couldn't help remembering, as Ramadan spoke, the way in which Joseph Stalin encouraged his Soviet troops to fight their Nazi invaders behind the banner of the church as well as communism.

For the Americans, however, there is no such comfort. From now onwards, every civilian, every car, every taxi, every truck driver, every newly "liberated" Iraqi becomes a potential killer.

The Americans have proved adept at accusing the Iraqis of breaking the rules of war while invading their country.

And their condemnation of the Iraqi soldiers who changed into civilian clothes sits ill at ease besides the images of US Special Forces in Afghanistan, who made a point of wearing civilian clothes and who sometimes went around half-naked.

At the weekend, it was the Iraqi vice-president who emphasised that "any means that will stop the enemy or kill the enemy will be used".

- INDEPENDENT

Herald Feature: Iraq war