The making of a suicide bomber

As the body count climbs, GRAHAM REIDlooks at the making of the Palestinian suicide bombers.

The young man stands in the photographer's studio and poses against the backdrop of a rural scene. But the image of quiet pastoralism is in jarring contrast with the subject: a man, in a colourful shirt, holding an automatic rifle.

Shortly after the shutter has snapped and captured him in his defiant pose, Mohamed Hashaika, from the West Bank village of Taloza near Nablus, will briefly walk into the pages of history. He will blow himself up in the centre of Jerusalem, killing three bystanders and wounding 60. .

And he will go to his god believing he was a martyr for the Palestinian cause.

Last month, Hashaika joined the growing roll of suicide bombers and while his story may be unique in its small detail - and the mourning of his family and friends no less deep than that of the families of his victims - he is also emblematic of so many prepared to strap on explosives and kill themselves for what they believe in.

The profile of Palestinian suicide bombers, like those we detail on this page, is depressingly similar. They have been almost exclusively male, are young, idealistic and often well-educated, and are driven by a doctrine of hate, revenge or political purpose.

Many come from the refugee camps and have been recruited by militants from Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

Fuelled by the idealism of youth and the promise of acclaim as a hero, they carry cheap explosives - most costing as little as $300 - and flicker briefly across the headlines.

Of their backgrounds we often know very little, the language used to describe them inadequate and frequently distilled to a few facts such as their name, age, and their village or town.

Their anonymity, however, is their weapon, meaning they can emerge with fearful swiftness.

Then their families grieve, the dead are buried, the political rhetoric rises, there are retaliatory raids by the Israeli military, and more young idealists detonate themselves in crowded streets or cafes and take their place.

Some stand apart, such as Wafa Idris. The 28-year-old divorcee from the West Bank refugee camp of al-Amari was known for her lively manner and outgoing personality. When she killed herself and an old man, and injured scores of others on January 31, she was the first woman suicide bomber in the 16-month-old Palestinian intifada. Older than most other suicide bombers, she was hailed a heroine of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein announced a monument honouring her would be built in Baghdad.

Hussein is also reportedly paying US$25,000 to the families of suicide bombers as an enticement for others to volunteer. The money seems unnecessary. Reasons to become a militant martyr are all around young Palestinians.

"If you live in the West Bank or Gaza," says Palestinian political scientist Ali Jerbawi, "you are driven to become a suicide bomber when you see the roadblocks, the way Israeli soldiers are treating Palestinians at these checkpoints."

And with every reprisal raid by Israeli forces, other young zealots are created.

"The storms of violence cannot go on," said US president George W. Bush this week. "When an 18-year-old Palestinian girl is induced to blow herself up and in the process kills a 17-year-old Israeli girl, the future itself is dying - the future of the Palestinian people and the future of the Israeli people."

Yet polls suggest the suicide bombers are accorded a large measure of support by Palestinians: 58 per cent in a survey last July, double what it had been four years before when hopes for a peace deal were strong.

But not all Palestinian families hail the martyrdom of their children. Ahmed Daraghmeh was an 18-year-old high school student and the son of a wealthy merchant from the West Bank village of Tubas. In October he became the 100th suicide bomber since 1993.

After his death his father, Abdel Menim Daraghmed, railed against those who had recruited his son: "What they did was unacceptable. Why? Because my son is still young, he knows nothing about life, he didn't even know how to get to Israel and he doesn't know how to drive a car."

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