U.S. government reports rising numbers of suicide bombings
Yesterday, we discussed security progress in Afghanistan and this was led by the words of the NATO commander for the mission, Gen. Dan K. McNeill, who seemed optimistic that the Afghan military could take over security for the country by 2011. However, Gen. McNeill also stated that though ‘toe-to-toe’ battles were on the downswing, the use of IEDs and suicide bombers was on the rise by the Taliban and other insurgents.
Just as McNeill was making his assessment, the Washington Post was leaked information about an upcoming US government report describing a dramatic increase in suicide bombings in the past 25 years, with the last five years seeing the biggest spike. The report states that of the 1,840 suicide incidents in the past 25 years, more than 86% have occurred since 2001. This is an alarming trend.
Where are these attacks occurring and by whom? It comes as no surprise that Iraq and Afghanistan have been the location of a large majority of these attacks; 920 in Iraq, 260 in Afghanistan, since 2001. In just last year alone, 658 attacks occurred around the world, including 542 in US-occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. Whether one supports the US troop presence in Afghanistan and Iraq or not, this specific method of violence has to be disturbing.
This is not just a US problem. The report states that suicide bombings have occurred in dozens of states on nearly every continent. In the past 25 years, 21,350 people have been killed and 50,000 injured by its use. Mohammed Hafez, of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, called this the ‘globalization of suicide bombs,’ which no longer are ‘confined to conflict zones, but are happening anywhere.’ He calls these suicide perpetrators ‘martyrs without borders.’ These incidents are not just occurring in US occupied territories, evidenced by the recent ‘plane incident’ in China’s Xinjiang Province, which if successful would have been added to this list.
What is behind this rise in suicide bombings as a method for warfare/violence? Is it just used because it has proven effective in changing state policy, as scholar Robert A. Pape strongly argues, or is something deeper and more troubling behind its rise? Do we now live in a world that has to accept this type of violence, ‘it can’t be stopped if someone really wants to do it,’ or is this just a phase or in fact something that can be defeated or at least marginalized?
April 24th, 2008 at 12:37 am
[…] Patrick Frost tells about an upcoming US government report describing a dramatic increase in suicide bombings in the last five years with Iraq and Afghanistan being the location of a large majority of these attacks. Posted by Adil Nurmakov Share This […]