Al Qaeda Using People with Disabilities as Suicide Bombers

In 2007 news reports first surfaced that al Qaeda was using people with disabilities as suicide bombers.

In the process, their families must be paid blood money.

As well, the would-be suicide bombers must face an awful dilemma: if they return to their home village, then they will face rejection by their families or worse, execution by al Qaeda.

Reports first surfaced in October 2007 about suicide bombers with disabilty.

There have been at least 110 suicide attacks in Afghanistan this year, more than in any other country except Iraq.

Most of the Afghan bombings are linked to the Taliban, but the identity of the recruits is often a mystery.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his security officials claim the attackers are foreigners, often from Pakistan. But a recent United Nations report says that bombers who were caught before they could carry out their attacks were overwhelmingly Afghan.

Whatever their nationality, many of the bombers have one major thing in common. A senior Afghan doctor who examines their remains finds that most of them were disabled or sick. — http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15276485

In developed nations, people with disabilities are treated better. In Afghanistan, al Qaeda uses them as suicide bombers.

Meanwhile, opium sales from Afghanistan are destabilizing the region. Reference: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25523&Cr=afghan&Cr1=drugs

Then in February 2008, a report about disabled female suicide bombers in Iraq appears.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/02/al_qaeda_in_iraq_use.php

Then another disabled suicide bomber only succeeds in blowing himself up in April 2009.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j42u52m_tp_x1rUrY3eU0I7qztSg

Also in August 2009, commentary is made about suicide bombers:

https://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/the-most-absurd-human-rights-violations-6-mentally-disabled-female-suicide-bomber/

While it is nice to know people with disability are treated better on the war front since 2007, it chills me to the bone that their families willingly take the blood money. Perhaps they have no alternative except death.

In 2011, we hear from a failed suicide bomber on the matter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYSyoY4cRw4‎

Overall, from their viewpoint, this appears to be a win-win situation for al Qaeda and for the families of disabled people victimized by the terrorists in this way.

However, to Western eyes, this is wrong on so many levels, that the life of a disabled person is worthless to terrorists. It clearly demonstrates that their ideology is tainted by a sense of entitlement and an air of superiority and other elements similar to narcissism, except that they go beyond being manipulative to being criminal.

Note: the al Qaeda in Afghanistan are the Taleban.

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Originally posted: March 12, 2008 at 5:51 PM