Showing posts with label suicide bombers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suicide bombers. Show all posts

Thursday, August 26, 2021

Bombs Strike Kabul Airport, Killing at Least 12 US Troops and Dozens of Afghan Civilians


The Defense Department said 12 U.S. service members were killed and 15 wounded in an ISIS suicide bomb attack near an airport gate on Thursday. Many more Afghan civilians were killed and wounded. Credit: Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Two suicide bombers struck a packed crowd outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 12 American service members and scores of Afghan civilians, officials said.

In the final days of its 20-year presence in Afghanistan, the U.S. military sustained one of the highest single-day American tolls of the war.

“Today is a hard day,” said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., head of the United States Central Command. And he warned that the danger was not over.

“We have other active threats against the airfield,” General McKenzie told reporters at a news conference in Washington.

The bombs were set off near a crowd of families at the airport gates who were desperately hoping to make one of the last evacuation flights out. Gunfire was reported in the aftermath of the explosions.

The Islamic State released a statement claiming responsibility for the attack. » | Eric Schmitt, Helene Cooper, Megan Specia, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Jim Huylebroek, Matthieu Aikins, Victor J. Blue, Fatima Faizi, Najim Rahim, Fahim Abed and Sharif Hassancontributed reporting. | Thursday, August 26, 2021

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Inside the Mind of a Suicide Bomber - BBC Newsnight


Gabriel Gatehouse takes a detailed look at the story of Mohammed Daleel, the Syrian man who blew himself up in Ansbach, Germany - and speaks exclusively to the psychotherapist who treated him.

Monday, February 23, 2015

My Friend the Suicide Bomber: Meet the Men Recruited to Kill


Al-Shabaab targets young vulnerable men across Scandinavia, inviting them to embrace jihad and become suicide bombers in Somalia. Seeking a sense of belonging, and encouraged by preachers on online videos, a group of Danish Muslims gathers in a small Copenhagen apartment and makes plans. When one man doubts the cause and sees his friends planning carnage, can he escape the call of al-Shabaab? If so, what next?

Monday, November 19, 2012

From Wedding Dress to Suicide Vest

THE MAIL ON SUNDAY: Aminat Kurbanova, 29, of Dagestan, seen smiling on wedding day in 2003 / Brought up as an Orthodox Christian and met husband at drama college / But she converted to Islam in 2007 and blew herself up three months ago / Brother-in-law introduced her to Islam but later died; as did her husband

Brought up as an Orthodox Christian by her mother, Aminat Kurbanova looked a picture of happiness at her wedding nine years ago - marrying the man with whom she had fallen in love at drama school.

But she converted to Islam in 2007 and three months ago walked into the house of a Muslim cleric in Dagestan, Russia, wearing a 3lb bomb, and blew herself up - killing eight people including her.

Once a stage actress, the 29-year-old mother had transformed into a Muslim suicide bomber. The blast shocked Russia but her mother Vera Saprighina insists she was ‘a kind person, not a monster’.

Kurbanova was brought up in Makhachkala, Dagestan, and gained top marks at the city’s arts and drama college - where she met her future husband Marat Kurbanov, reported the Sunday Times [£].

The couple married in 2003 and she gave birth to a daughter, Malika, two years later. In 2006 the couple were introduced to Islam by Marat’s brother Rustam - and Kurbanov converted a year later.

‘She said she had finally found the right religion for her,’ her mother Vera Saprighina told the Sunday Times. ‘Before long, both left the theatre because dancing and acting are considered un-Islamic.’

But Rustam was killed in a police house raid on suspected militants in 2008. It shocked the couple. Marat left home, never to come back, and is thought to have joined militants to avenge the death. How Russian Islamic convert kissed her daughter goodbye and blew herself up at cleric's home » | Mark Duell | Sunday, November 18, 2012

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Free Syrian Army Targets World's Oldest Christian Community in Syria

The "Free Syrian Army" have decided to send suicide bombers and booby-trapped cars into Christian villages to kill and terrorize the Christians of Syria. Their tactic is similar to their al Qaeda brethren in Iraq who bombed Christian towns and churches to drive Christians out of Iraq. They think that by ethnic cleansing they can get rid of communities whose existence in Syria and the Levant predates Islam.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Assad's Brother-in-law and Top Syrian Officials Killed in Damascus Suicide Bomb

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: President Bashar al-Assad's brother-in-law and the Syrian defence minister have been killed in a bombing that struck at the heart of the country's security establishment.

State TV said President Assad's brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, and Gen Dawoud Rajha, the defence minister were victims of a blast during a high level security meeting. The Interior minister was also injured.

Gen Shawkat was the deputy defense minister and was among the most feared figures in Assad's inner circle. He is married to Assad's elder sister, Bushra.

Reports said the officials had been killed by a bodyguard in a suicide bombing in the capital of Syria but other reports said a device was placed within the building. A "terrorist bomb" which exploded at a national security building in Damascus during a meeting of ministers and security officials wounded several people, some of them critically, state television said.

The state-run news agency SANA reported that Wednesday's blast took place at the National Security building, a headquarters for one of Syria's intelligence branches. Activists in Damascus said by telephone that Republican Guards sealed off the Shami hospital in the capital after ambulances had brought casualties from the site of the explosion. Read on and comment » | Damien McElroy | Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Saturday, June 09, 2012

Four French Soldiers Killed by Burka-wearing Bomber

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A suicide bomber dressed in a burka blew himself up near a French patrol in Afghanistan on Saturday, killing four soldiers and wounding five in one of the deadliest attacks on the French contingent in months.

The attack occurred in the mountainous Kapisa province in the east of the country, an area mainly patrolled by a French force under Nato command.

"It was an unfortunate incident. There was a patrol of coalition soldiers in a small bazaar and they were attacked by a suicide bomber wearing a burka," said Sediq Sediqqi, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman.

French President Francois [sic] Hollande's office in Paris confirmed that the soldiers involved in the attack were French.

A statement from his office said among the five wounded, three were in a serious condition, and Mr Hollande would dispatch defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to Afghanistan on Sunday. » | Saturday, June 09, 2012

Monday, May 21, 2012

Suicide Bomber Kills Scores in Yemen


Read the article here | Tom A. Peter | Christian Science Monitor Correspondent | Monday, May 21, 2012

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Gilad Shalit Release: Freed Palestinian Prisoner Vows to 'Sacrifice' Her Life

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: An unsuccessful suicide bomber released from prison as part of the deal to free Gilad Shalit, the Israeli conscript, on Wednesday vowed to fulfil a childhood ambition by "sacrificing" her life for the Palestinian cause.

As she returned to her family home in northern Gaza, Wafa al-Bis insisted she would seize any opportunity to mount another suicide mission and encouraged dozens of cheering schoolchildren to follow her example.

Bis was one of hundreds of Palestinian militants freed by Israel on Tuesday in the first phase of a prisoner swap agreed with Hamas, Gaza’s Islamist overlords, to win the freedom of Sgt Maj Shalit after five years in solitary confinement.

Her words will chill critics of the deal who argue that many of the 1,027 Palestinians who are to be released from prison will return to violence once they have been freed. For most Israelis, such fears have been consigned to the future as an anxious nation watched to see how the 25-year-old conscript was faring on his first full day at home in Mitzpe Hila, his home village in the hills above the Sea of Galilee. Continue reading and comment » | Adrian Blomfield, Gaza City and Richard Spencer in Mitzpe Hila | Wednesday, October 11, 2011

Sunday, December 12, 2010

In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful! Image: Google Images

Suspected Suicide Bomb in Central Stockholm Injures Two and Panics Shoppers

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A suspected terrorist blew himself up in an apparent suicide bomb attack in central Stockholm which left two injured and caused panic among Christmas shoppers.

Two explosions rocked the busy shopping street of Drottninggatan among the afternoon crowds.

A Swedish news agency said it had received messages about 10 minutes before the blasts in Arabic and Swedish, warning of unspecified “action”.

The email warning, 10 minutes before the bombs, protested about the country’s presence in Afghanistan, where it has a force of 500 soldiers, mainly in the north of the country.

“Our acts will speak for themselves,” the agency quoted the message as saying. “Now your children, your daughters and your sisters will die as our brothers, our sisters and our children are dying.”

The email had sound files in Swedish and Arabic. >>> Alastair Jamieson | Saturday, December 11, 2010

THE SUNDAY TIMES: Sweden hit by twin blasts in terrorist attack >>> Lucinda Beaman | Sunday, December 12, 2010 (£)

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Turquie : Un attentat-kamikaze sur une place d'Istanbul aurait fait 22 blessés

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L'attaque s'est produite sur l'esplanade de la place de Taksim, centre névralgique de la métropole fréquenté par des dizaines de milliers de personnes chaque jour. Photo : Le Point

LE POINT: Un attentat-suicide a blessé 22 personnes dimanche en plein centre d'Istanbul, la plus grande métropole de Turquie, et les premiers soupçons se portaient sur les rebelles kurdes. "Nous pensons qu'il s'agit d'un attentat-suicide", a indiqué le chef de la police de la ville, Hüseyin Capkin, qui a fait état dans un premier temps de 15 blessés : six civils et neuf policiers. Plus tard, il a évoqué un nouveau bilan de 22 blessés, dont 10 policiers et 12 civils, tout en rassurant que leurs jours n'étaient pas en danger. Aucun responsable de la ville n'a évoqué le sort du kamikaze, un homme, selon Capkin, qui aurait été tué sur le coup.

Les chaînes de télévision ont montré des images de policiers recouvrant une personne inanimée en sang gisant au sol. Selon les témoins cités par les chaînes d'information, une violente déflagration s'est produite vers 10 h 30 locales sur l'esplanade de la place Taksim, sur la rive européenne de la ville, où des policiers antiémeutes sont en faction 24 heures sur 24. Selon Hüseyin Capkin, l'assaillant aurait visé les policiers. "Il a tenté de pénétrer dans un car de police mais n'a pas réussi", a-t-il souligné. >>> Source AFP | Dimanche 31 Octobre 2010

Turkey Suicide Bomb Injures 15 in Centre of Istanbul

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: A suicide bomber has blown himself up in the centre of Istanbul, wounding 15 people.

"We think it was a suicide attack," said Istanbul police chief Huseyin Capkin, adding that two of the wounded were in a serious condition.

Six of the injured were civilians and nine were police, he said. >>> | Sunday, October 31, 2010

THE GUARDIAN: Suicide bomb attack on Istanbul's main square: Bomber detonated device near police in Taksim Square, wounding 22 people >>> Associated Press | Sunday, October 31, 2010

Türkei: Verletzte bei Selbstmordanschlag in Istanbul

WELT ONLINE: Ein Selbstmordattentäter hat mitten auf Istanbuls belebtem Taksim-Platz eine Bombe gezündet. Zehn Polizisten wurden verletzt, zwei davon schwer.

Ein Selbstmordattentäter hat am Sonntag im Zentrum der türkischen Metropole Istanbul mit einer Bombe mindestens 22 Menschen verletzt. Bei einer am Tatort gefundenen Leiche handele es sich um den Attentäter, sagte ein Polizeisprecher. Der Mann habe versucht, auf dem belebten Taksim-Platz in einen Polizeibus einzudringen, sei aber abgewehrt worden. Unter den Verletzten seien zehn Polizisten und zwölf Passanten. Zwei der Polizisten sind schwer verletzt.

Kurz nach dem Anschlag ist laut Polizei ein weiterer Sprengsatz gefunden worden. Die zweite Bombe befinde sich bei der Leiche des Attentäters auf dem Taksim-Platz, sagte Polizeichef Hüseyin Capkin. >>> dpa/pku | Sonntag, 31. Oktober 2010

Friday, July 02, 2010

Suicide Attack on Sufi Shrine in Pakistan Kills Dozens

THE TELEGRAPH: Three suicide bombers attacked a popular Sufi shrine in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, leaving at least 42 dead and wounding nearly 200 people.



The bombing of Lahore's Data Darbar shrine, the burial site of a famous Sufi saint, struck at the heart of the moderate Islam most Pakistanis practice. The assault wounded 180 people and again demonstrated the potency of militant groups that are linked to but operate far from the north-west tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

Thousands of people had gathered late on Thursday at the green-domed shrine when bombs went off minutes apart in separate sections.

The blasts ripped concrete from the walls, twisted metal gates and left the white marble floor awash with blood.

Worshippers scattered as white plumes of smoke blanketed the area, footage showed.

There was no claim of responsibility, but Islamist extremists consider Sufism to be heretical, and they have previously struck non-Sunni sects. >>> | Friday, July 02, 2010

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Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Taliban Suicide Bombers Attack Jalalabad Nato Base in Afghanistan

THE TELEGRAPH: Six Taliban suicide bombers launched a brazen daylight attack on one of the biggest Nato bases in Afghanistan one day after Gen David Petraeus warned of escalating violence.

Several attackers were killed when gunmen set off a car bomb and fired rocket propelled grenades at the Jalalabad air base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday.

Two service personnel were injured, according to the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force.

The attack began at 0730 local time, with suicide bombers surrounding the base from different directions.

A Nato spokesman said the perimeter of the base had not been breached. >>> | Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Sunday, June 20, 2010


Islam’s Sisters of Sacrifice

THE SUNDAY TIMES: Videos made by the widows who became suicide bombers on the Moscow metro give a chilling insight into the radicalisation of women

Sitting on a carpet beside an AK-47 automatic rifle, her face concealed behind a black veil, Dzhanet Abdurakhmanova calmly addresses the shaky video camera. Her message is chilling.

In a soft voice, broken only once by a heavy sigh, the 17-year-old tells how she has sealed a pact with Allah in return for a place in heaven. “I have decided to fulfil my pledge,” she says. “God willing, I will become a martyr.”

Four days later Abdurakhmanova caught an early-morning train on the Moscow metro, more than 1,000 miles from her native Dagestan in Russia’s Caucasus region.

Strapped to her waist was more than 4lb of explosive packed with metal bolts and screws. At a station in central Moscow she detonated the charge. The blast killed 14 commuters and wounded dozens more. She was decapitated.

A second video, shot in the same place, shows another veiled woman who was identified by the security sources as Maryam Sharipova.

On the day that Abdurakhmanova set off her bomb in March, Sharipova, a 28-year-old teacher from Dagestan, killed 26 people by blowing herself up at Moscow’s Lubyanka metro station. More than 100 were injured in the two explosions, the first such attack in the capital for six years.

The videos, obtained by The Sunday Times, provide fresh insights into the indoctrinated minds of the two bombers. Both repeatedly call on other women to turn themselves into human bombs. Read on and comment (+ chilling video) >>> Mark Franchetti | Sunday, June 20, 2010

Monday, April 12, 2010

Russia's Bitter Harvest

LOS ANGELES TIMES: As the Moscow bombings remind, the simmering insurgency and brutal crackdown in the Caucasus have left a landscape of damaged women, some all too ready to spread their pain to Russia's heartland.

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Mariyam Sharipova, one of the two women who carried out the attack in Moscow, is seen in a photo on the cellphone of her mother, Patimat Magomedova. (April 12, 2010) Photograph: Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Balakhani, Russia
The last time Patimat Magomedova saw her daughter, she was puttering around the house, manicuring her nails and using henna to dye her hair bright red.

It's high time we take care of the garden, the mother remembers Mariyam Sharipova saying that Friday. Let's plant raspberries, cucumbers, greens. And we have to do something about the kitchen, maybe get some pretty new dishes.

By evening, the young woman had vanished from the house in this remote mountain village in the Russian republic of Dagestan. Magomedova didn't see her daughter's face again until somebody showed her a photograph of a decapitated head. At that moment, she said, "I knew there was no mistake."

Sharipova, 27, had traveled a thousand miles to Moscow and climbed onto a crowded subway train at rush hour with an explosives-packed belt strapped around her waist. She was accompanied by a 17-year-old girl, also from Dagestan, who blew herself up at another station.

In the Russian news media, the women were immediately dubbed "black widows." Their assault on the subway was taken as proof that the country had been shuttled back to the fearsome days when hollow-eyed female militants stalked Moscow and other cities far from the wars where their men fought Russian forces.

The subway bombings also sent ripples of unease across the turbulent, mostly Muslim republics strung along Russia's southern edge. There was angst over the slaying of civilians and fear of retaliation.

But it came as slim surprise that women were ready to die. This, after all, is a landscape of damaged women, grieving losses they dare not dwell upon.

The closer you get to the fighting in the Caucasus, the murkier it appears. The violence in Dagestan, and in neighboring Chechnya and Ingushetia, is not easy to classify -- it's a mix of rebels who want independence from Russia, Islamist extremists bent on waging jihad, local clan and gang warfare and sectarian strife.

And as the fighting intensifies, it is the men who disappear. Masked agents pound on the door and cart them off for questioning. They come back beaten, or not at all. Sometimes the men are rebels; other times, their affiliations are bafflingly vague.

It's the women who are left behind, their status and material comforts tangled up in the choices of their fathers, sons and husbands.

Sharipova lived in a spacious, gated house with grape trellises and dizzying views up the mountainsides. Her mother teaches biology; her father is a self-described "patriot of the motherland" who teaches Russian literature.

She was a serious young woman who studied mathematics, psychology and computers. She was also a homebody who, in the words of her mother, "didn't mix well." When not working as the deputy principal of the village school, she busied herself with home improvement projects, cooked pilaf and fussed over clothes.

The fighting crept into the village. Security forces periodically staged "cleanup operations," swarming Balakhani with armored personnel carriers, helicopters and legions of ground troops, cutting off access to the mosque and searching house by house for signs of rebels. >>> Megan K. Stack | Monday, April 12, 2010

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Taliban 'Ready to Unleash 3,000 Suicide Bombers in Pakistan'

THE TELEGRAPH: The Taliban has claimed it is ready to unleash 3,000 suicide bombers in Pakistan in protest at military operations and American drone attacks in its tribal areas.

In the last few weeks the Taliban's overall military commander for Afghanistan, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who is Mullah Omar's deputy, was captured in a joint intelligence raid in Karachi by Pakistani and American agents.

Several members of the 'Quetta Shura', the movement's ruling council were later captured in the city, while the group's Pakistani leader Hakimullah Mehsud was believed to have been killed in a missile strike by an unmanned Predator drone. Earlier this week, Mullah Omar's son-in-law, a former minister in the last Taliban government was also arrested.

The threat was issued after one of its leaders claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb which killed 13 people outside an interrogation centre in Lahore where militant suspects are questioned. >>> Dean Nelson in New Delhi | Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Muslim Women 'Radicalised' in UK

If Muslims cannot live by civilized norms of behaviour, then why should we, the peace-loving majority, accept them here? – © Mark

BBC: On 1 February, a female suicide bomber killed 54 people in north-east Baghdad.

The attack may have happened on another continent, but there are increasing concerns that violent extremism among women may now also be increasing in the UK.

It is believed that the process of radicalisation often takes place at universities.

One Islamist group linked with this practice is Hizb ut-Tahrir.

While not itself connected to any terrorist acts, Hizb ut-Tahrir has courted controversy and politicians have seized on some of its more inflammatory views.

The Conservative Party has said it would ban the organisation altogether.

Nazreen Nawaz is a spokeswoman for the group. She became a member while studying medicine at King's College London.

Today, sitting at her dining table in south London, she teaches her four-year-old daughter how to spell and explains her decision to join.

"The philosophy of Hizb ut-Tahrir offered me a view of Islam that could solve many of the problems in the Muslim world," Dr Nawaz says.

"We don't advocate that British Muslims go over and fight in Palestine and occupied countries.

"What we say is that people in lands such as Afghanistan, Iraq and occupied countries have the right to defend themselves."

'Naive'

There are concerns that hundreds of British Muslim women have been radicalised, many while being students.

Recent intelligence reports about terror plots involving women, and the growing trend of al-Qaeda's use of female suicide bombers, have ignited concerns that some may turn to violent extremism in Britain. >>> Rahila Bano, BBC World Service | Thursday, February 04, 2010