Drinking the Kool-Aid
Hasib Hussain
with the bomb on his back
Nasra Hassan is an international relief worker based in Vienna who has recently completed a book on suicide bombers, based on her interviews with some 250 people “involved in the most militant camps of the Palestinian cause: volunteers who had been unable to complete their suicide missions, the families of dead bombers, and the men who trained them.”
Reading her account today in the Times of how suicide bombers are recruited, trained and prepared for death — their victims and their own — is horrifying:
Just before the bomber sets out on his final journey, he performs a ritual ablution, puts on clean clothes, and tries to attend at least one communal prayer at a mosque. He says the traditional Islamic prayer that is customary before battle, and he asks Allah to forgive his sins and to bless his mission. He puts a Koran in his left breast pocket, above the heart, and he straps the explosives around his waist or picks up a briefcase or a bag containing the bomb. The planner bids him farewell with the words “May Allah be with you, may Allah give you success so that you achieve Paradise.”
The would-be martyr responds, “Inshallah, we will meet in Paradise.”
Hours later, as he presses the detonator, he says, “Allahu akbar” — “Allah is great. All praise to Him.”
Recommended by Stanley Kurtz at the Corner.
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