Posted on 06/21/2002 1:31:58 PM PDT by vannrox
By Alan Philps
June 20 2002
Arien Ahmed, a 20-year-old student from Bethlehem, has a message for suicide bombers: think twice before you push the button.
In May, she went on a suicide mission to the Israeli town of Rishon Lezion, but changed her mind when she saw the people she was about to blow up.
"I walked out of the car with a backpack full of explosives and nails," she said. "I looked at the street and I thought 'I cannot kill innocent people'."
She went on the mission apparently convinced that a suicide bombing was a fitting revenge for the death of 1500 Palestinians, including her boyfriend, who was blown up in March.
But during the drive to Rishon Lezion her mind churned over what she was doing. She thought she was performing a sacred duty for the memory of her beloved, but the operation was organised in such a slapdash fashion that she realised she was part of a production line whose end was more likely to be damnation than paradise.
She refused to give in to pressure to go through with the operation and was driven back to her home in Bethlehem.
A few days later, the Israeli army arrested her and she is now in jail awaiting trial. She can expect a sentence of at least five years.
As with any prison interview, her words should be taken with a grain of salt. She freely admits that she agreed to talk to reporters in the hope of a more lenient sentence. But she says she made a courageous decision of which she is proud.
"I have a message: the Palestinians all have to think twice. We have to think how we can achieve what we want in a peaceful way," she said.
She is a most unlikely candidate for a suicide bomber. She comes from an educated family - her aunt, who brought her up, has a masters degree in mathematics - and she won a scholarship to Bethlehem University to study business administration.
She is employed in the computer laboratory there and until recently was in e-mail contact with Israelis she met at a peace forum.
Her life changed after the death of her boyfriend, Jad Salem, 26, a minor operative of the Bethlehem Tanzim, an armed group affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. She says he was killed by the Israeli army, but the Israelis say he was blown up by a bomb he was rigging.
Grief-stricken, she offered her services to one of Salem's associates, Ahmed Mughrabi.
"I went to him on a Friday and on Tuesday he told me to be ready," she said. "The next day he came to me and said 'Today is the day'."
She was handed an explosive bag and wore a too-tight T-shirt showing her navel, to look like an Israeli girl. She found she was on a double mission with a 16-year-old boy, Isa Badir.
The car they were given had no brakes and a damaged headlight, meaning they could be picked up by the Israeli police at any moment. It seemed they were just cannon fodder in a senseless war.
"I became suspicious. Why did they give us such a bad car?" she said. The answer was obvious. The car was going to be abandoned, so why waste a good one? She insisted on going back to Bethlehem. Badir also had doubts, but was persuaded to go through with it. He blew himself up, killing two Israelis and injuring 40.
Her fellow countrymen, she says, will see her as a "pussy cat" - the only suicide bomber who got to the target and refused to go through with the operation.
- Telegraph
This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/06/19/1023864454353.html
What?!? Those evil Zionist oppressors give scholarships to Palestinians to study in their universities?? No, this can't be, we all know that the Palestinians are poor and downtrodden and hopeless....!!
(Unless, of course Beth U. is a Palestinian-run University, and call me cynical but I really doubt it.)
Methinks she was really thinking "What am I doing? Am I nuts? I could die doing this!"
And what would "paradise" for a young woman homicide bomber be?
I've wondered the same thing myself.
Perhaps to be ravished by 72 of the male faithful?
Granted the last straw seemed to come from the quality of the car , But that tells me she was waivering the entire time .
Good for her . It is another small step forward I hope .
Perhaps to be ravished by 72 of the male faithful?
Oh MY!! (-:
The most unfortunate thing is, an Israeli prison is probably the only safe place she could be right now... My guess is that if she were back on the street, the militants and radicals would stake her head on the highest mountain as a warning to other would-be peacemakers.
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