Salah Montasser contrasts suicide bombings in Palestine and Iraq Suicide attacks have abated in Palestine just as they picked up in Iraq. On the day preceding the elections, Iraq was hit by a spate of suicide attacks. Iraqi bombers are a different species from their Palestinian counterparts. In Palestine, the young men and women who carry out suicide attacks are known to the entire public. Their pictures adorn homes, their stories are told, and their families get financial help. In Iraq, no one knows who the suicide bombers are. Like ghosts, they come from nowhere and disappear into the unknown. Whenever a suicide attack is mounted in Palestine, the group that carries it out hastens to release the name of the person involved. The Israeli intelligence takes it up from there, collecting more information about the bomber's family, then demolishing his/her home, and perhaps the entire street. At times, Israeli intelligence, who infiltrate Palestinian groups, are tipped off and manage to abort the attack. In Iraq, the only group known to mount such attacks is that of Al-Zarqawi, himself a shadowy figure. Never has that group released the names of the bombers or told the world anything about their background and countries of origin. No wonder, the US intelligence has no clue about the bombers, who seem to come from nowhere to strike and die. In Palestine, a smaller land with no weapons to mention, except in the hands of the Israelis, the bombers are easy to track down. In Iraq, the land is huge and abundant in weapons and explosives, courtesy of a war that never was. What does the "martyr" in Iraq get? In Palestine, we know what it is all about. A young man or woman undergoes a process of psychological preparation, a process captured on film which later released to the public. The bomber is promised paradise in the afterlife and glory in this one. Only God knows what goes on in paradise, but in this life the bomber's achievement is recorded and glorified. This is exactly what Iraqi martyrs never get. No one knows who they are. Not a picture, not a name is released. And yet, they are many. They even outnumber their Palestinian counterparts. This is the biggest mystery of all. This is the mystery of the Iraq bomber.
