Failed martyr emerges as confused teenager

By DOLAND MANINTYRE and SA'ID GHAZALI

The would-be suicide bomber foiled by Israeli soldiers at an Army checkpoint emerged yesterday as a confused, undersized and under-achieving 16-year-old who said while in detention that he was mocked at school for being an "ugly dwarf" and wanted to reach Paradise to "meet the 72 virgins there".

The sad picture of the 16-year-old Hussam Abdu engaged by members of an armed faction - almost certainly a cell of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, whose overall organisation is linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah - began to build up as his father spoke of his anger at his exploitation by militants.

Muhammad Abdu, 54, said: "He did not go to school. He likes to play. He is not good in school. He was good before the Intifada. He is too young.

"Those who sent him, they are shameless. How they can send a young boy like him?"

The boy's brother, Hosni Abdu, said he was angry with whoever persuaded his brother to become a suicide bomber. "The ones who sent him are stupid, because the Army will give him two slaps and he will tell them who sent him," he said.

Still hanging on the boy's bedroom wall yesterday, next to a Winnie the Pooh cushion, were pictures of two prominent local militants. In an interview with an Arabic-speaking reporter granted access to the boy by his captors, he says: "On Tuesday night I sat with friends, and then I made the decision. When they put the bomb belt on me I was afraid. I didn't tell anyone what I was going to do.

"I didn't tell my mother or my father. When I got to the roadblock I was less and less afraid. But when the soldiers stopped me I didn't press the switch. I changed my mind. I didn't want to die anymore. I took the battery out of the bomb belt."

The boy, who is from the Makhifya neighbourhood of Nablus and is notably small for his age, was asked how he knew what awaited him in Paradise, he said: "The teacher in school told us. He told us to fast, pray and do good deeds in order to reach Paradise. He told us about the life of pleasure that waits there: A river of honey, a river of wine and 72 virgins. Since I have been studying Koran I know about the sweet life that waits there."

He added: "My friends at school make fun of me. They call me fiseh [smart, clever], but at the same time they make fun of me because I am short and not good looking.

"They call me 'the ugly dwarf'. They hurt me so much that I wanted to killed myself."

The boy's aunt, Iman, 35, said the boy was too young to have been a martyr but added defiantly: "I am very proud of him. Every Arab, every Muslim should be proud of him. We should fight them. But I am not happy because he is too young.".

* Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered a Palestinian area of the Gaza Strip late on Thursday after soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians who were apparently trying to infiltrate a Jewish settlement.

It was the most serious incident since Israel's assassination of the founder of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, in a Monday air strike in Gaza City.

The military said an armed cell of three Palestinians opened fire on an Army outpost and a civilian vehicle at the settlement of Tel Katifa, opposite the Palestinian town of Deir e-Balah in central Gaza near the Mediterranean coast.

In a heavy exchange of fire, the three Palestinians were killed. The military said there were no Israeli casualties.

- INDEPENDENT