By PETER POPHAM
ISLAMABAD - The Taleban is preparing to confront Allied ground troops in Afghanistan with a kamikaze-style suicide squad, say sources in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border.
Afghan as well as Arab fighters are being trained to carry out suicide attacks, says Hamid Nawaz, a Pakistani journalist with sources close to the Taleban.
The squad of fidayeen fighters - meaning those who are about to sacrifice themselves - is being readied for action once the Allies have committed forces to a ground war.
Members of the fidayeen squad have been spotted in several Taleban-controlled areas.
The mastermind behind the unit is a shadowy Arab, originally from Morocco, with family connections to leaders of the Palestinian organisation Al Fatah.
He has persuaded Taleban leaders, who have never previously favoured suicide operations, that the times demand them.
The last suicide mission inside Afghanistan was carried out on September 9, two days before the attacks on New York and Washington, but it was not the work of Afghans.
Two Arabs posing as journalists blew up themselves and Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Masood by means of a bomb hidden in their video camera.
It emerged this week that they had hoped to wipe out the entire Northern Alliance leadership, but failed to persuade them to sit for a group photograph.
The September 11 suicide attacks by terrorists believed to be operating on instructions from Osama bin Laden were also carried out by Arabs - most of them Saudis.
The new squad has a distinctive look. Its members carry Russian AK-83 or German HK MP5 assault rifles rather than the Taleban's standard issue AK-47s.
They also wear strips on their chests embroidered with verses from the Koran.
No Afghans have been involved in suicide operations because the Hanafi school of Islam, to which most Taleban members subscribe, forbids it. The rival Hanbali school believes such attacks are permissible in emergencies, hence the Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters who blow themselves up in Israeli pizza parlours and discotheques, and the Kashmiri fidayeen squads who fight their way into Indian Army installations in Kashmir and wreak as much havoc as they can before they are shot dead.
The overwhelming military might of the United States and its allies seems to have persuaded the Taleban to permit suicide attacks.
The leaders of the September 11 attacks appear to have followed the pattern of Japan's Second World War kamikaze pilots, who steeled themselves for death with the help of strong drink and barbiturates, and allowed young women to throw themselves upon them on the eve of operations.
The Allies may draw heart from the fact that the Japanese only adopted kamikaze tactics in January 1945, when defeat stared them in the face.
But it adds one more menace for ground troops to overcome in the world's most daunting battlefield.
- INDEPENDENT
Story archives:
Links: War against terrorism
Timeline: Major events since the Sept 11 attacks
Taleban readies suicide squads
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
