"If they keep this up, the virgins are going to be depleted!"
Lots more where this one came from.
Posted on 04/01/2003 2:10:07 PM PST by miltonim
CAIRO -- Many Arabs hailed Saturday's suicide attack on U.S. soldiers in Iraq as an act of martyrdom yesterday, underlining the stark difference between Arab views of that most desperate of tactics and sentiment in the West.
In Rabat, Morocco, a crowd of 150,000 marched in an anti-American protest, many of them chanting, "Martyr attacks lead to freedom."
Cairo's Egyptian Gazette ran a headline describing the Iraqi attacker as a "martyr bomber."
The militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad said it was sending "martyrdom seekers" to Iraq.
Four U.S. soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division were killed Saturday when a bomb was detonated inside a car they were searching near the southern Iraqi city of Najaf.
It was the first time Iraqis had used suicide tactics, which had been widely predicted.
At a press briefing at the Pentagon, U.S. Major-General Stanley McChrystal said the attack "looks and feels like terrorism."
However, the commander of U.S.-led forces in Iraq, General Tommy Franks, conceded yesterday that because the attack was aimed at a military target, it did not meet the classical definition of terrorism.
The Iraqi government was anything but apologetic about the use of the tactic.
The bomber, said to be a junior army officer named Ali Hammadi al-Namani, a father of five, was posthumously showered with honours.
He was retroactively promoted to the rank of colonel, and his family was reportedly offered 100 million dinars (about $50,000) in compensation.
In the past, the Iraqi government has awarded cash payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, who usually target Israeli civilians, as a way of building support among Arabs.
Although recently appointed Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has called for a halt to such attacks, they have been widely seen among Arabs as a legitimate weapon of the weaker party in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"Any method that stops or kills the enemy will be used," Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan told a news conference.
"We do not call them suicide attacks," he said.
"People who commit suicide are desperate.
A person does not become a martyr upon orders.
It is a spiritual state that has many examples in the history of Arabs and Islam."
Mr. Ramadan promised that the tactic would be employed again.
He said thousands of volunteers were arriving in Iraq.
During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, people streamed to the area from Arab countries as volunteer fighters, some of whom later became the nucleus of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group.
Yesterday, the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, which has been responsible for many suicide attacks in Israel, said it had already dispatched "martyrs" to Iraq.
The group, which also claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in the Israeli city of Netanya yesterday in which more than 30 people were injured, issued a press release in Beirut.
U.S. military spokesmen brushed off the suggestion that Iraqi suicide attacks might shift the military balance in the war or force them to change tactics in any way.
However, Major-General Buford Blount, commander of the division that suffered Saturday's losses, said his troops would probably impose tighter restrictions on the movements of Iraqis in the vicinity of U.S. and British troops.
"That's unfortunate," Maj.-Gen.Blount said, "but it's going to be necessary to ensure the safety of our soldiers."
Killing yourself in a desperate bid to keep a mass-murderer in power!
A sick, deeply sick culture.
Martyr attacks lead to death.
"If they keep this up, the virgins are going to be depleted!"
Lots more where this one came from.
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