Yvonne Ridley ducks, weaves, splutters, lies, goes berzerk on the ABC’s AM radio program last Saturday:
JANE COWAN: Can you categorically condemn suicide bombing?
YVONNE RIDLEY: You know, the greatest purveyors of suicide bombing are the Tamil Tigers, a Marxist-Leninist organization, largely of the Hindu faith; I’m not really quite sure why it is being attached specifically towards Muslims.
JANE COWAN: But if you’ve been reported as saying you support suicide bombing, would you now here condemn it, no matter who perpetrates it?
YVONNE RIDLEY: I condemn shoddy journalism and poor research, and people like you should know better than to try and tackle people like me over things that have allegedly been said or not said.
ANE COWAN: But this is an opportunity for you to clarify your views, and …
YVONNE RIDLEY: I’ve clarified them. What don’t you understand?
Listen, I have told you exactly what I have said, now you tell me why you need me to condemn something that is as plain as, you know, as the language that I’ve just said. What didn’t you understand about what I have just said?
JANE COWAN: My question is, do you or do you not support suicide bombing?
YVONNE RIDLEY: Of course I don’t.
Feel free to read the whole thing, just to make sure she is not being taken out of context and that it still makes no sense what-so-ver. There is not much more to it.
Anyhow, of course she doesn’t support suicide bombing. The term that is. She much prefers the more glorifying description of martyrdom operations:
A: Yvonne Ridley - “Muslims have lost confidence since September 11th. Something as simple as suicide bombers being martyrs is being denied by prominent sheikhs. The dictionary definition of a martyr is a person who gives up their life for a cause - suicide bombers are martyrs.”
Now, about that bit on the Tamil Tigers and why oh why, as Yvonne wonders indignantly above, is suicide bombing associated with Islam.
Suicide bombing: 1980 - 2001
Lets start with the following numbers on Wikipedia and go from there:
“Lebanon saw the first bombing, but it was the LTTE Tamil Tigers who perfected the tactic and inspired its use elsewhere [2]. Their Black Tiger unit has committed between 76 and 168 (estimates vary) suicide bombings since 1987.
That first statement is a strange one to make, considering the Black Tigers carried out their first suicide bombing in 1987, by which time they were already common place in Lebanon, for example the suicide car bombing of the Iraqi embassy by Islamists in 1981, the bombing of the U.S. embassy by Hezbollah in 1983 and the bombing of the American and French barracks, also in 1983 and also by Hezbollah and Iran. In the least the word “bombing” above should be plural. Further, for a decade after 1987, most of the suicide bombings perpetrated by groups other than the Tamil Tigers were carried out by groups originating either in Lebanon or Israel, ie Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Brigades. Did Hamas need inspiration from Sri Lanka, when they already had plenty from next door in Lebanon, where they were also involved in the Lebanese uncivil free-for-all?
A quick look at those numbers on Black Tiger bombings - “between 76 and 168″.
The lower number, 76, is taken from Robert Pape’s book, “Dying to Win”:
Pape says that the group [the Tamil Tigers] accounted for 76 of 315 suicide attacks carried out around the world from 1980 through 2003, compared with 54 for the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and 27 for Islamic Jihad.
The higher number, 168, is taken from this report by Jane’s Intelligence Review (note these numbers stop just before the start of the intifada in Israel in 2000, see more recent figures from that region further down):
NUMBER OF SUICIDE ATTACKS BETWEEN 1980 - 2000
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka and in India 168
Hizbullah and pro-Syrian groups in Lebanon, Kuwait and Argentina 52
Hamas in Israel 22
The Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in Turkey 15
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Israel 8
Al Quaida in East Africa 2
The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) in Croatia 1
The Islamic Group (IG) in Pakistan 1
Barbar Khalsa International (BKI) in India 1
The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria 1
What we have above is 10 groups out of which 7 are Islamic, 2 are Marxists-Leninist nationalists (the LTTE and the PKK, although the latter began reclaiming their Islamic identity from the late 1980s on) and one Sikh separatist group, BKI. What we also have, by the way, is numbers pretty damn different to Robert Pape, whom everyone (and especially Islamist apologists) seems to quote, usually out of context, as an expert on suicide bombing.
The list from Jane’s seem far from exhaustive, for example the suicide bombing of the Iraqi embassy in 1981 in Beirut was carried out by the Islamic Dawa Party, which is a militant Shiite party, to which the current Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki belongs. Others were also carried out in Lebanon by groups like Amal and even the schitzophrenically fascist Syrian Social Nationalist Party, who are credited with the first suicide bombing by a woman. Overall however, terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman calculates that 31 out of the 35 groups that have carried out suicide bombings since 1980 are Islamic (2005 figure).
Suicide bombing since 2001.
Looking at the numbers above, Yvonne would have had a point had she made her statement, often repeated by Islamist apologists, 5 or more years ago. Since then however the picture has changed completely, no matter how you look at it. As the number below will show, 95% - 97% of the suicide attacks in the last 5-6 years have been carried out by Islamists, with a large number against civilian targets.
In 2002 a ceasefire was signed in Sri Lanka and the suicide bombings ceased, until renewed hostilities in 2004. In the three years since 16 suicide bombings have been carried out by the Tamil Tigers. Taking the 168 from the Jane’s article, and adding the 16 recent one, plus 7 that occured between October 2000 (when the Jane’s article was published) and the ceasefire and we get a total of 191 in 20 years. Note however that most although certainly not all, of these were against military targets.
In the meantime the Second intifada started in Israel in September 2000. In 2002, as a ceasefire was signed in Sri Lanka, the intifada was at its peak - 42 suicide bombings were carried out by Palestinian Islamists that year, killing 228 people. Dozens more followed since. About 130 suicide bombings have been carried out in Israel in the last 15 years, about 75 of those by Hamas, 22 by Al-Aqsa Martyrs brigades and 32 by Islamic Jihad. The number would be much higher had it not been for the excellent work of the Israeli security services and the security wall. And then came Iraq. There were about 30 suicide bombings in Iraq in 2003. Then two to three times that in 2004. In 2005 the numbers went off the chart, as this Washington Post article from July 2005 that I’ve already quoted above documents:
The numbers in Iraq alone are breathtaking: About 400 suicide bombings have shaken Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, and suicide now plays a role in two out of every three insurgent bombings. In May, an estimated 90 suicide bombings were carried out in the war-torn country — nearly as many as the Israeli government has documented in the conflict with Palestinians since 1993.
Hundreds more have followed in Iraq since. A November 2006 estimate by David Cook put the number at 540, with a death toll between 16,000 and 18,000. Stratfor put the number above 500 for 2005 alone (subscription only). Dozens more have followed in other countries. In the 1980x only three countries experienced suicide attacks - Labanon, Kuwait and Sri Lanka. By 2002 this had risen to 15, including countries as far and wide as Croatia and Argentina, Russia (23 suicide attacks since 2000, 6 against civilian targets) and Algeria. The number is now above 30 (hint: the Tamil Tigers have not expanded their area of operation). The Tamil Tigers have long been superseded by the various Islamist groups in terms of number bombings and even more so in number of casualties, especially civilian casualties. Islamist terrorist groups are responsible for the most deadly suicide attacks - at least the top 10, the suicide attacks that killed the most civilians - again easily the top 10, and the attacks that used the most bombers at one time. The genocidal Islamist terrorist organization Lashkar e-Toiba pioneered the use of suicide squads (fedayeen) in their operations. Just in 2005 Islamist groups in Iraq alone carried out more attacks than all non-Islamist groups in the last 30 years combined, the civilian death toll has also been proportionally larger. Islamists have flown planes into building killing thousands of civilians, blown themselves up to kill hundreds on trains, in mosques, and in crowded markets, walked into weddings, cafes, nightclubs and onto buses killing dozens or more. All the while they were screaming “Allahu Akbar!”, fantasizing of virgin flesh and yearning to please Allah. In the background of the carnage Islamic clerics have been issuing fatwas that support these suicide attacks, not only against military targets, but also against civilians. Is it clear yet why the question is being asked specifically in relation to Muslims yet, Yvonne?
Perhaps it isn’t, after all, this is Yvonne Ridley we’re talking about, so lets continue.
So how about your pals, the Taliban then, who claim to have 2000 suicide bombers (and 10,000 fighters) ready for the imminent spring offensive? OK, we all know thats bullshit, but even if we go with the much lesser estimate given by the commander of US forces in Afghanistan Major General David Rodriguez, who says they have more like 500 suicide bombers and 3,000 fighters, thats still a substantial number. Potentially record breaking even. Speaking of breaking records, lets see - Afghanistan had 25 bombings in 2004, 139 in 2005 and about 30 so far this year, targeting not only military targets but also civilian buses and markets, with 84% of the victims of these attacks being civilians (Feb 2007 figure). Add to that their 8 suicide attacks in Pakistan this year so far (ie not even looking at previous years) we get a total of 201, thus making the Taliban greater “purveyors of suicide bombing” than the Tamil Tigers (in 3 years versus 20). And all they are trying to do is catch up with their friends in Iraq.
Speaking of Pakistan, last week the chief cleric of the Red Mosque [Lal Masjid] in Islamabad had this to say:
“Our youth will commit suicide attacks, if the government impedes the enforcement of the Sharia and attacks Lal Masjid and its sister seminaries,” Maulana Abdul Aziz, the in-charge of the mosque said in his Friday sermon. The fresh suicide bombing threat is stated to be the strongest given so far by the hard-line clerics of the Lal Masjid, intensifying fear among Islamabad residents.
How about Morocco, where 4 bombers were killed or killed themselves yesterday and another detonated himself last month, his exposition leading the the uncovering of a plot involving at least 12 bombers? These bombers were working in Casablanca, by the way, where 45 people died in the Islamist suicide bombings in 2003 carried out by 14 bombers from the Al-Qaeda linked group Salafia Jihadia. The list goes on and on - London, Bali, Moscow, Riyadh. Islamists, Islamists, Islamists, Islamists. And the latest news - a twin suicide car bombing in Algeria, that killed 30 people. What kind of group may the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) be? Oh sorry, I see they’ve recently changed their name to the Al-Qa’ida Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb.
The “martyrdom-seeking nation of Iran”.
No martyrdom-seeking roll call can be complete without the “martyrdom-seeking nation of Iran”:
In an earlier interview with Parto-Sokhan, Jaafari [commander of the “Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison”] announced that more than 50,000 individuals had been enlisted in the Iranian military garrison opened to recruit and train volunteers for “martyrdom-seeking operations”.
He added that several military divisions of the “Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison” had already been established in several of Iran’s provinces and others were presently being formed to “confront threats by America and Israel”.
The leader of the glorious Iranian bullshit-spinning entity praised his death-seeking fanatical compatriots a couple of weeks ago: “Suicide bombers in this land showed us the way, and they enlighten our future”, brimming with pride that Iran is capable of recruiting “hundreds of suicide bombers a day”.
In the name of Islam.
Perhaps its time to hear from a Muslim, here’s Yasmin Al-Mas in “Something has gone wrong” where she looks at challenging the Islamic justification for suicide terror, used by the Salafi-Jihadists, Q-News Magazine, November 2005:
Worldwide, in merely three years after 9/11, the number of suicide bombings in the name of Islam had increased three-fold than it had over two decades whilst the number of people killed had doubled. Suicide bombing in the name of Islam had now occurred in 26 countries: Lebanon [1981], Kuwait [1983], Argentina [1992], Panama, Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories [1994], Pakistan, Croatia [1995], Saudi Arabia [1996], Tanzania, Kenya [1998], Yemen, Chechnya [2000], USA, Kashmir, Afghanistan [2001], Tunisia, Indonesia, Algeria [2002], Morocco, Russia, India, Iraq, Turkey [2003], Uzbekistan and Spain [2004] and the United Kingdom [2005].
The bigger picture.
Here’s Walid Phares, with some more numbers (Feb 2007):
Asked to estimate the number of jihadist insurgents worldwide, Phares had some unsettling news.
“It depends on what the duty of such people [insurgents] would be,” he told NewsMax. “Suicide bombers would be lower in number than of those who will fight, those who will spy, those who will provide funds. There are about from 5% to 6% to 8% jihadist sympathizers in the Muslim world, which is 1.1 billion, so we are talking about 50 to 60 million who sympathize with these ideas.
“They are all not committed, but out of those you have probably 1% of people who would fight. That’s an army of 1 million. Among those, if you want to go to the most narrow dimension, there are about 100,000 suicide bombers around the world. For example, in Iraq there are probably 5,000, in Iran another 8,000 to 10,000, and within Hezbollah, 2,000.
“There is a pool of 100,000 people who have received this jihadist ideology and could be recruited for suicide bombing. Internationally, from an operational standpoint, there are somewhere around 5,000, and that’s a huge number of suicide bombers. Look at England, for example the operation of [July 7, 2005 — the subway bombings] involved eight terrorists The next year, in the operation that wanted to bring down the airliners, there were about 50. So it grows geometrically.”
Why you should verify what you read on Wikipedia.
While we’re on the subject of “shoddy” reporting, take a look at this Wikipedia article on the Tamil Tigers:
LTTE had carried out more suicide bombings than any other organization on the face of the earth. According to the experts at Janes securities, between 1980 to 2000, LTTE had carried out a total number of 1,680 suicide attacks on civilians, political, and military targets. The number of suicide attacks easily exceeded the combine total of Hizbullah and Hamas suicide attacks carried out during the same period.[48]
Reference 48 is the Jane’s article which I quoted above. As you can see the original Jane’s article seems to be missing that extra 0.
UPDATE: I compiled the data above into the table below.
Top perpetrators of suicide attacks since 1980.
Al Qaeda in Iraq/Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) 500-800
Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan 200+
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka and in India 190+
Hamas in Israel 75
Hizbullah and pro-Syrian groups in Lebanon, Kuwait and Argentina 52
Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades 32
Chechen groups in Russia 23
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Israel 22
Al Qaeda outside of Iraq 20+
The Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in Turkey 15
Note: Where I am not quoting other sources, for attacks where multiple attackers were involved I am adding up the number og targets attacked, not the number of attackers. Thus for the Casablanca 2003 bombings, there were 5 targets attacked, with 14 bombers, 12 of which detonated successfully, so I am counting that as 5. I wanted to avoid skewing the numbers by counting it as either 1 or 14.
Regarding the Al Qaeda in Iraq estimate, in 2006 Ayman Al Zawahiri, claimed Al Qaeda carried out 800 suicide bombings in Iraq. Al Zawahiri is of course exaggerating, but the total number of attacks over the last 4 years would be approaching that number. Also according to a report from the Gulf Research Center (see last link), there is four groups other than Al Qaeda that have carried out suicide attacks in Iraq. The same report also states that suicide attacks in Afghanistan increased 750% between 2001 and 2006, jumping from 21 to 180, suggesting a total far higher than what I’ve stated above, so as you can see I am playing it safe with the numbers.
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