Afghanistan News September 30, 2005

September 30, 2005

EU Raises Concerns Over Afghan Vote Fraud
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
30 September 2005 -- The European Union today raised concerns over vote fraud in Afghanistan, where counting continues after recent legislative elections.

In a statement today, the EU election observation mission in Kabul said some provinces had seen ballot stuffing, proxy voting and possible intimidation of voters.

While not nationwide, it said the problem is a "cause for concern" and called on the UN-backed Afghan electoral body to address the problem "in a transparent and effective way in order to safeguard the integrity of the electoral process."

The EU body of 120 observers who monitored the Afghan polls on September 18 continues to oversee counting in 32 centers across the country.

More than half the votes have been counted. Initial results are expected next week, with the final results to be announced after a two-week complaints period.

AFGHANISTAN: Interview with chief electoral officer, Peter Erben
KABUL, 30 September (IRIN) - After almost three decades of conflict and violence, Afghanistan marked its entry back to a civil and lawful rule last October when Hamid Karzai was elected president with a 55 percent majority in a direct poll held across the country. Eleven months on, on Sunday another historical milestone was reached when the country held its parliamentary and provincial council elections, under an Afghan-UN Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), which also administered last year's presidential polls.

Since the run-up to 18 September election began by the end of March, Peter Erben, as chief electoral Officer at the JEMB, has been administering polling arrangements nationwide. In an interview with IRIN in the Afghan capital Kabul, Erben discussed the many challenges and remarkable features of Sunday's Afghan election.

Q: Since it was the first general election in Afghanistan after almost three decades of conflict, do you consider this any different from other post-conflict elections held in recent years in various countries across the globe?

A: With all its shared similarities of other post-conflict situations, Afghanistan's elections also had some distinct features making it somewhat more challenging than the elections held in recent years in Bosnia or Iraq.

Since it was a relatively long period of conflict where an entire Afghan generation was affected, very little of the infrastructure was left behind whereas in other countries at least a road network was in place. So logistically it was a huge challenge to conduct an election exercise in such a vast country without any established road network. In addition, continued conflict in some parts of the country was also an obstacle to a peaceful general election. Then women's participation in the electoral process was another challenge on the cultural front.

Q: What sort of logistical challenges were there in holding these elections across this wide rugged terrain?

A: Holding two elections on the same day was itself not a difficult task, as in many countries of the world this is what happens. Here, it was a relatively complex electoral system, with 69 different kinds of separate ballot papers (34 different provincial council ballot papers, 34 Wolesi Jirga [lower house] ballot papers, and one Kuchi ballot paper) ranging in size from one to seven pages, depending on the number of candidates per province. Kabul for example had 400 candidates. With bigger ballots, we had to bring new ballot boxes in, and then transport them all across the country to urban, rural, remote and mountainous areas. In short, in terms of weight and volume, this year's election material was 10 times greater than last year's presidential polls.

Q: This time female participation has increased a lot both in terms of voter registration and participation in the elections. But, are there still pockets without any registered women voters, or very low registration figures? Also, are there women candidates for every seat reserved for females in the national and provincial legislatures? If not [as in some cases in southern provinces] what will happen to the seats?

A: Women participated in these elections all over Afghanistan both as candidates and voters. It is a distinct cultural change visible across the country. This year's voters' list of over 12 million carries 44 percent female registrants. Women representation in legislatures is guaranteed, with 68 seats reserved in the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga and 25 percent of seats in provincial councils set aside for females. Last year, there were few districts with no females registered, however this time all the 398 districts have women registered voters. In fact, it has increased in the southern region. For example, in Uruzgan province it increased by 35 percent and in Helmand by 23 percent. [Also], in Ajristan district of Ghazni province, no women registered last year, but this year 13,000 women registered.

As far as women representation in the Wolesi Jirga is concerned, it will be up to its capacity. However, of a total 34, two of the provincial councils in Zabul and Nangarhar provinces are likely to have some of the women's seats remain vacant due to a lack of candidates. Uruzgan province had no female contestant at all, so its provincial council will be without any female representative.

Q: How many of the more than 6,200 polling centres were operational on polling day last Sunday? And did they have separate polling stations for women?

A: Of over 6,200 polling centres only a few were not operational for security reasons, in the provinces of Daikundi, Kandahar, Uruzgan and Helmand. Each polling centre had women's polling stations as well.

Q: There was no polling arrangement for a large majority of internally displaced persons (IDPs) settled in the south from the north [almost over 150,000], and an equal number of returnees? Why not?

A: Yes, Afghanistan has a significant [level of] internal displacement. But logistically it was not possible to arrange [for voting] with 69 different ballots where these people are living now. The same was true for Afghans living in Pakistan and Iran.

Another way of accommodating this population was to reserve seats for them in the parliament, and likewise for the Kuchis [Afghanistan's nomadic people]. However, there was no such provision made for out of country or displaced electorates.

As far as returnees from Pakistan or Iran are concerned, all those who returned under the [office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] UNHCR's voluntary programme, were given the opportunity to get their voter registration cards at the encashment centres for their province of residence. However, for the unofficial returnees, there was no such provision because it could have given more opportunities for irregular voter entries in the absence of any proof of identity.

Q: The JEMB had an extended public outreach programme with several traditional and innovative techniques used to target some 1 million people, but apparently it didn't focus much on the Kuchi community, where, according to some observer reports, there was extremely low awareness about how to cast votes.

A: As a matter of fact, there was much more money for the Kuchi community in our public outreach programme than any other community. Of over 1,800 civic educators about 110 were from the Kuchis. But, we have to see this from the perspective of a post-conflict situation; let me make this point as well, our programme was for public awareness about this election, and on the election day everyone knew that there was an election in Afghanistan. In a six-month period, it was a great achievement. Had there been more time, it could have been extended. But, often, even in developed countries, not everyone knows each and every thing about the electoral process.

Q: How are you dealing with complaints regarding election irregularities?

A: For complaints, we have a procedure of internal investigations, of quarantining suspicious ballot boxes, and then there is a separate Electoral Complaints Commission to hear the complaints. After a generally peaceful election without any significant security incidents anywhere in the country, now ballot counting is under way. The results are expected sometime in the middle of October, followed by a five-day complaint and audit period after which the JEMB will announce certified results to put the lower house of parliament and provincial councils finally in place.

In a war zone, reality no longer sells
ioneering director laments Afghans' preference for glitzy films and wrestling over social commentary, GRAEME SMITH writes
By GRAEME SMITH / The Globe and Mail (Canada) / Friday, September 30, 2005 Page A3

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- When Hidayatullah Azizi first showed his films in public, so many people wanted to see his grainy VHS tapes that they filled the seats in Kandahar's education centre and even crowded onto the stairs at the back, fanning themselves in the stuffy heat.

Dignitaries from this southern province of Afghanistan made speeches before the film, and Mr. Azizi won applause for his lecture about how he made the two movies to illustrate the plight of Afghan refugees.

That was October, 2002, only a year after the defeat of the Taliban, which had banned every kind of film and television. Movies were still a novelty to the people in this broken city, the former headquarters for the strict regime.

But nobody has expressed the slightest interest in Mr. Azizi's latest script, about the drug trade that is rotting Afghan society.

"People don't take an interest in reality any more," said the 30-year-old director. "They don't want Afghan movies. They want Bollywood and professional wrestling."

Blackouts, roadblocks and the constant threat of violence aren't the biggest challenges for an independent filmmaker in this dangerous region, it seems, despite the soldiers still roaming the countryside on the hunt for Taliban insurgents and the homemade bombs killing people on a regular basis.

The real problem is finding anyone who appreciates social commentary, Mr. Azizi said, amid the chaos of the new Kandahar. Vendors here sell a colourful assortment of pirated movies: Hollywood blockbusters, Bollywood musicals from India and martial-arts films from Hong Kong.

The vast majority of women in the markets still wear the traditional Islamic burqa, but under the counter many stalls also hide a stash of illegal pornographic DVDs. Behind the mud walls of the city's more comfortable homes, satellite dishes and cable television have inspired a craze for the steroid-fuelled antics of U.S. wrestling shows.

Few people in Kandahar seem to think that Vince McMahon would rig a fight, and bodybuilding clubs have sprung up as quickly as English schools, as young men strive to look and sound like their heroes.

There isn't much homegrown entertainment to balance the local media diet. A few film companies have emerged in Kabul, but Mr. Azizi says he's the only film director in Kandahar, the second-biggest city in the country. He carries a laminated identity card, stamped and signed, declaring, "Occupation: Film Director." But the truth is that he's now unemployed, and unsure when he will be able to scrape together enough money for his next film.

He's unwilling to give up the profession, however. His father was a director, one of a handful of filmmakers under the regime of communist leader Mohammad Najibullah, making films about the atrocities of the mujahedeen that have been described as either propaganda or documentaries.

Like many Afghans, they fled for Pakistan when the Taliban took over in 1996. His father took a risk by trying to save his life's work, smuggling out a cloth bag full of video cassettes despite the fact that they could have been killed if the Taliban had noticed the forbidden materials.

"My hands were shaking, because I was very afraid," Mr. Azizi said.

He spent six years saving up for his first two films, working 18-hour days as a clerk for pharmacies, plumbing stores, and carpet dealers. At night he worked on his scripts, writing about his neighbours in the slums of Quetta, Pakistan.

"I would write until 2 a.m., and cry the whole time," Mr. Azizi said. "These are sad stories, about poor children. They rummage in the garbage without any shoes, taking the scraps other people throw away. So I wept when I wrote those words."

Finally he rented a clunky Panasonic M3000 and turned the words into pictures. He did most of the work himself, with a cast of friends.

The results were amateurish but touching. Return to Homeland features Afghan orphans living in Pakistan, and shows some unnecessarily long scenes of death and mourning during its 150 minutes. His other film, Poverty, runs 80 minutes and tells a more engaging story about a boy who tries to win a school competition so his sister can have a pair of shoes.

Neither film has been released, but Mr. Azizi is patient. Afghanistan may not be ready for that kind of social realism at the moment, he said, but some day the mood will change.

"We had 25 years of war in this country. The people are very tired. They want comedy, fighting, love stories. But I don't care. My next film, if I get a chance, will be about drug smokers."

IED attack wounds 4 U.S. service members near Asadabad
September 30, 2005 Combined Forces Command - Afghanistan Coalition Press Information Center (Public Affairs)
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – Four U.S. service members were wounded when their up-armored, high-mobility, multi-purpose wheeled vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device near Asadabad today.

The wounded were evacuated to Bagram where they are currently listed in stable condition.

The unit was returning from defusing another IED in the area at the time of the attack. Afghan and U.S. forces immediately secured the scene of the attack and are conducting offensive operations to kill or capture those responsible.

Explosive ordnance disposal experts are at the scene.

“Improvised explosive devices are dangerous and indiscriminate devices that injure innocent Afghans as often as Coalition forces. The governor of Kunar, Governor Wafa, has directed a Regional Shura of elders from all of Kunar to engage them about attacks like these against the Government of Afghanistan and Coalition forces. Clearly, the vast majority of Afghan citizens in Kunar are tired of this type of lawlessness,” said Col. Patrick Donahue, commanding officer, Regional Command East. “Our wounded service members will receive the best care possible, and we pray for their speedy and full recovery.”

US security boss 'shot dead' Afghan interpreter: police
Friday September 30, 04:42 AM
HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) - An American supervisor at a security firm shot dead his Afghan interpreter apparently after a disagreement, police said.

The Afghan, identified as Noor Ahmad, was working for United States Protection and Investigation (USPI) which is providing security for companies building a road in the western province of Farah, they said.

"An American man ... killed his interpreter inside their camp on Wednesday," provincial police chief Allahuddin Noorzai told AFP.

The victim's brother, Sher Ahmad, also said Noor was killed by his boss. An official in the firm said he was not aware of the incident.

USPI is one of the biggest security firms in Afghanistan, employing hundreds of foreign security guards as well as Afghans, including former members of private militias, to secure construction sites on a ringroad linking the Afghan capital with Kandahar in the south and western Herat.

A British security expert working in Farah province with USPI was killed after an ambush last month. Taliban rebels claimed responsibility for the killing.

Former US commander of Abu Ghraib prison says little done to check abuses
September 30, 2005
LONDON (AFP) - The former US commander of Abu Ghraib prison said that little has been done to check abuses at US-run jails in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay since the first photographs exposed the scandal.

"We haven't dealt very effectively with those photographs or what they indicated," US Army Reserve Colonel Janis Karpinski, who was demoted from her rank of brigadier general over the scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, told BBC radio.

"I think it's largely proved now that it wasn't just seven out-of-control soldiers on a night shift" at Abu Ghraib, where Iraqi prisoners were abused and sexually humiliated, Karpinski said.

Documents produced since "that time indicated that it was taking place in Afghanistan, in Guantanamo Bay," Karpinski added.

"The difference was of course that there was no photographs ... (of) those events taking place in other locations," she said.

She said she was the only high-ranking officer to have been dealt with so harshly as others implicated in the events "walked basically."

However, she said it will take a long time before other photographs will be released and only then will there be an "opportunity to get a more balanced view and certainly a fair assessment of where the blame belongs."

She added "I don't know if we're getting a full an accurate picture of the situation in Iraq, or in Afghanistan, or in Guantanamo Bay," the US-run prison in Cuba where prisoners were taken from Afghanistan and elsewhere.

"I don't think that there's been an effective means to stop it from going on now," she said.

"Thankfully we don't have any report but that might be as simple as soldiers being told what they can say to the media and what they can't say to the media," Karpinski said.

A US federal judge Thursday ordered the government to release pictures of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, rebuffing warnings from Washington they would fan anti-US sentiment that could be exploited by terrorists.

US soldier sentenced for abuses
Thursday, 29 September 2005 BBC News
A US military interrogator has been sentenced to five months in prison for assaulting a detainee in Afghanistan who later died.

Sgt Joshua Claus is the sixth US soldier to be convicted following the deaths of two prisoners at the military base at Bagram, outside Kabul, in 2002.

The Afghan government has expressed disappointment over the leniency of earlier punishments.

Sentences have ranged from two months' imprisonment to a reduction in rank.

'Humiliating'

Sgt Claus pleaded guilty to maltreatment and assault, and to forcing an inmate to kiss his boots.

Forcing someone to kiss boots or feet is considered as a strong insult in the Muslim faith.

The abuses were caused by frustrations during interrogations, the military intelligence soldier said.

Sgt Claus admitted forcing water down the throat of a detainee known as Dilawar and twisting a hood over his head.

Dilawar, a 22-year-old taxi driver, and another man called Habibullah both died.

No one has been charged with causing their deaths.

"It was extremely humiliating," Sgt Claus said. "I was telling him he was lower than dirt."

British defence secretary in Afghanistan for talks
September 30, 2005
KABUL (AFP) - British Defence Secretary John Reid arrived in Afghanistan to hold talks with Afghan leaders over his country's help for the war-torn nation and to visit British troops, officials said.

Reid would meet with the US-backed president Hamid Karzai in his heavily-guarded palace in the capital Kabul on Saturday, presidential spokesman Khaliq Ahmad told AFP on Friday.

"They'll discuss bilateral issues including Britain's military assistance to Afghanistan," the spokesman said.

Reid would also meet his Afghan counterpart Abdul Rahim Wardak on the same day and the two ministers would appear later at a press conference, according to Afghan defense ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi.

Lieutenant Kate Morahet, spokeswoman for British troops with the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, confirmed that Reid had arrived in Kabul on a four-day visit.

She said Reid would visit British troops based in Afghanistan and also open a British-founded school in Kabul.

China vows to back political peace in Afghanistan
BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- China will back political peace and economic reconstruction process in Afghanistan, said Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan here Friday.

China seeks to carry out mutually beneficial cooperation with Afghanistan in a win-win manner, Tang told Afghan Vice Foreign Minister Zalmay Aziz, who is here for consultations with his Chinese counterpart Dai Bingguo.

China will also urge the international community to help Afghanistan achieve stability and prosperity, said Tang.

"China highly respects the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan and respects its people's independent choice of social system and development mode," said Tang.

Meanwhile, Tang voiced his opposition to foreign countries' interference with Afghanistan's internal affairs.

The growth of Sino-Afghanistan relations has maintained a good momentum in the past three years, acknowledged Tang. China will work with Afghanistan to lift bilateral relations to a new height.

Aziz thanked China for its role in Afghanistan's peace process,hoping the neighbor could continue to involve itself in the reconstruction of his country so as to contribute more to peace inAfghanistan and regional stability.

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing met with Aziz Friday morning. Enditem

Daily Afghan Report
September 29, 2005
Suicide Bomber Kills In Kabul
At least nine people were killed and close to 30 others injured in a suicide bomb attack in the Pol-e Charkhi area of Kabul on 28 September, Pajhwak News Agency reported, quoting Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zaher Azimi. An unidentified source in the Defense Ministry added that the suicide bomber crashed his motorcycle into a bus carrying Afghan National Army (ANA) recruits. An anonymous Western source said that all of the victims were Afghans and none worked with the U.S.-led coalition forces or the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), AFP reported on 28 September. It is not clear whether all of the victims were ANA recruits. Neo-Taliban spokesman Mufti Latifullah Hakimi said on 28 September that "Mullah Sardar Mohammad, a Taliban mujahed, carried out" the suicide bombing, the Peshawar-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported. AT

Northern Afghan Parliamentary Candidate Killed

Ashraf Ramazan was killed along with one of his bodyguards on 27 September in Mazar-e Sharif, the provincial capital of Balkh Province, the Xinhua news agency reported. Ramazan was returning from a ballot-counting center when gunmen in car targeted his vehicle. Ramazan, a businessman, was a member of the Shi'a Wahdat party. In the partial counting of the ballots from Balkh, Ramazan was in fifth place. Balkh is allocated 11 seats in the lower house of the Afghan parliament. Neo-Taliban spokesman Hakimi told AIP on 28 September that "the Taliban attacked Ashraf Ramazan" without elaborating further. AT

Mine Blast Kills Three In Northeastern Afghanistan

Two police officers and a civilian were killed and four other persons were injured on 28 September when a landmine when off in Konar Province, Pajhwak News Agency reported. Deputy chief of Konar police department Lieutenant Mohammad Hasan Farahi told Pajhwak that the mine went off as the police and civilians were combing an area where terrorists had planted new mines in an effort to scuttle the 18 September elections in Afghanistan. AT

Berlin Extends German Forces' Mandate In Afghanistan...

Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, gave its approval on 28 September for the participation of German forces in an expanded ISAF, ddp reported. The special session of the Bundestag approved new and expanded roles for Germans troops in Afghanistan with a vote of 535 in favor and only 14 against; there were four abstentions. The new mandate allows German forces to be deployed in southern and western Afghanistan, leaving only the eastern parts of the country exclusively as an area of operation for the U.S.-led coalition forces. German troops are already deployed in Kabul and northern Afghanistan. In addition, the Bundestag approved an increase in the number of German troops serving with ISAF, from 2,250 to 3,000. AT

...Though Germans To Avoid Counternarcotics Operations

In a separate report on 28 September, ddp indicated that German forces in Afghanistan would continue to avoid involvement in counternarcotics operations. According to ddp, German Defense Minister Peter Struck told ZDF television on 28 September that while narcotics cultivation is a "major problem" in Afghanistan, it nevertheless is "a matter for the Afghans" to deal with. German forces will provide "logistical assistance" in the counternarcotics efforts, but will not confront drug traders. Other than the ongoing terrorist activities by the neo-Taliban and their allies, the greatest security threat to Afghanistan's stability is the country's opium poppy cultivation. Unless NATO decides to include active counternarcotics operations in the mandate of ISAF as it expands its area of operation, the prospects for a victory against the drug trade may be bleak. AT

Afghanistan's communist-era intelligence chief set to go on trial
PakTribune / Thursday September 29, 2005
KABUL: As prosecutors announced trial of Afghanistan's communist era intelligence chief Asadullah Sarwary would be held soon, people from different walks of life demanded the hearing must be open, free and fair.

A senior prosecutor of the intelligence directorate General Abbas said on Wednesday, case of Asadullah Sarwary, who served as intelligence chief during Noor Mohammad Trakai government, had been completed and would be presented before the crimes court soon.

Blamed for killing and torturing government's opponents on the basis of suspicion during the communist era, Sarwary is under detention over the past 13 years. Abbas said his case would be presented before a special court.

Several Afghan leaders and social figures demanded of the government to place him on an open trail and show him no concession.

Ahmad Amin Ismail Mojaddedi, leader of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order in Kabul, said he was ready to give testimony against Sarwary, who had killed 35 members of his family. His statement was supported by attorney general Mahmood Daqiq, saying Sarwary was accused of killing 36 members of the Mojaddedi family.

In a chat with Pajhwok Afghan News, the spiritual leader said he had seen 35 members of his family arrested by intelligence officials led by the accused. They heard no more of those people. Besides, added Ismail Mojaddedi, he had witnessed the then intelligence chief killing several other innocent people.

"On the eve of January 18, 1979, three armored vehicles broke into our house and the first man who stepped down was Sarwary. He took away 35 members of our family, including my father, grandfather, uncles and cousins, who never returned," said Mojaddedi while recalling the dark era.

"I am witness to the killing of 300 people in the Pul-i-Charkhi jail when Sarwary read out a brief order of their elimination," he said.

He urged the national and international human rights groups to raise voice against such criminals and try them in the court of law. Aziz Ahmad Akbari, Sarwary's then deputy, who is living in Germany, was one among them, Mojaddedi pointed out.

Dr Kabir Ranjbar, leader of the National Democratic Party and a candidate for the Wolesi Jirga from Kabul, said Sarwary should have been tried and punished long before. "Besides my two close relatives, the man had killed scores of other innocent people during his tenure as intelligence chief."

But the accused denied the allegations, pleading an intelligence chief could not issue death orders of individuals. "This is not right. Intelligence chief does not have the authority to execute people," Sarwary said when approached by this news agency for comments.

The accused lamented he was the only pro-communist era official who was languishing in jail over the past 13 years while many of his colleagues were part of the present government.

Meanwhile, an official privy to the case said the former intelligence chief was involved in killing of some people without any trial. Without identifying himself, the official revealed some of Sarwary's main victims included Obaidullah Safi, a supreme court judge, another judge in Sar-i-Pul, Sayed Qasim and a tribal leader Sher Ahmad Khosti.

Humiliation a Factor in Suicide Attacks
By STEVEN GUTKIN / Associated Press / Thu Sep 29, 3:41 PM ET
BEERSHEBA, Israel - A bomb strapped to his abdomen, Rafat Moqadi walked into a Tel Aviv restaurant and saw a woman dining with her two little girls. "Seeing that, I decided not to carry out the operation. I couldn't do it," he said.

Yet, Moqadi said he longed for what he believes awaits a suicide bomber in the hereafter — God's reward and a special place in heaven for martyrs. "He has a life in paradise," he told The Associated Press on Thursday. "He doesn't die."

A rare jailhouse interview with the would-be suicide bomber revealed a common thread running through the rising worldwide phenomenon: Most attackers are driven not by poverty or ignorance, but by a lethal mix of nationalism, zealotry and humiliation.

As the pace of attacks increases in the Middle East and beyond, a surprising profile is emerging of those willing to take their own lives: many are young, middle class and educated.

Nearly four-fifths of all suicide attacks over the past 35 years have occurred since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist strikes in the U.S., according to the RAND Center for Terrorism Risk Management. And 80 percent of those have been carried out by radical Islamic groups, said the center's director, Bruce Hoffman.

But religion is only part of the picture. Moqadi said that wasn't his motivation.

"The main reason was to resist the (Israeli) occupation, to create a balance of power with the Israeli army," he said.

"At the moment they put the (explosives) belt on me there were a few seconds of doubt," he said. "But after that I felt strength. I felt stronger than the whole state of Israel. It was a good feeling."

Moqadi, who is serving a 14-year sentence in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, said he graduated high school and worked with his brothers laying tile before joining the Hamas militant group in 2002. The soft-spoken 26-year-old with neatly cropped hair said he did so in response to massive gunbattles between Israeli forces and Palestinians in Jenin.

Now, Moqadi spends most of his time in jail learning to speak, read and write Hebrew, the language of the Jewish state. Islam, he said, teaches that it's important to "know your enemy."

Moqadi is not alone in having doubts before pressing the button, said Ariel Merari, an Israeli psychologist who has interviewed numerous would-be bombers.

"A person who volunteers usually hesitates. He has second thoughts," Merari said.

Often what makes the person carry out the mission is commitment to a group, making it difficult to back out without losing face, experts say. Many of today's suicide bombers, especially in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, come from societies where many people condone the action, making it easier to execute.

"Usually there are rites and rituals just before launching that constitute the last nail in the coffin," Merari said.

For Palestinian attackers, the last ritual is usually the making of a videotape in which the bomber proclaims commitment to national liberation. In Sri Lanka, when suicide bombings were prevalent, it was often a final dinner with rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

Since the early 1980s, three countries have accounted for the vast majority of suicide bombings: Iraq, Israel and Sri Lanka. Iraq has become the global leader in suicide attacks, with an average of two a day during the past six months, attracting jihadists the world over, said Merari, who studies the issue at Tel Aviv University.

The conflicts in Israel and Iraq provide a fertile battlefield for suicide bombers, just as the conflict in Lebanon did during the 1980s and the one in Sri Lanka did from 1987 to 2002.

Hoffman attributes the sharp upturn in suicide bombings to their success in achieving the attackers' goal. His studies reveal that suicide strikes around the world kill four times as many people as other kinds of terrorism.

On Thursday alone, three suicide car bombs exploding nearly simultaneously killed at least 60 people in a city north of Baghdad.

In Afghanistan, another post Sept. 11 war front, a man launched a rare suicide attack in that country Wednesday outside a military training center in Kabul, killing nine people and breaking 10 days of relative calm after landmark parliamentary elections. The bombing, the worst to hit Kabul in a year, added to fears insurgents could copy tactics used in Iraq.

Recent studies have debunked some common misperceptions about suicide bombers: that most are poor, that they're in it for personal revenge, that they're crazy and uneducated.

"He wasn't short of money," said Bilal Ardo, whose 16-year-old son Hussam was arrested in March 2004 at a West Bank checkpoint with an explosives belt strapped to his body. "I have a supermarket and his pockets were never empty."

Many suicide bombers have come from middle class families and have attended university. But most were "relatively unimportant people, not leader types but follower types," Merari said.

Most have been men, but in places like Sri Lanka and Chechnya, up to 40 percent have been women, he said. Most were in their late teens or early 20s but some, including many of the 9/11 bombers, were a decade or more older. Almost all have been single and childless.

Some bombers do seek revenge, such as Hanadi Jaradat, 27, who blew up herself and 19 others at a restaurant in northern Israel in 2003 after seeing her brother die at the hands of Israeli troops. But most thwarted bombers say their motivation was nationalist, not personal.

A letter appearing this week in the journal Nature noted that many of today's Islamic radicals — especially those operating in the West like in London or Madrid — have no clear political goals but instead act "to oppose a perceived global evil." The letter, by researchers Scott Atran and Jessica Stern, said many potential suicide bombers in the West feel marginalized from society and "bond as they surf jihadi websites to find direction and purpose."

Abdel Haleem Izzedin, an Islamic Jihad leader in the West Bank town of Jenin, said Palestinian candidates for suicide bombings are "normal people" who "believe that Israel is occupying and confiscating their land and want to fight back."

Bombers in places like Madrid and London, he said, were "unusual" and "extreme."

Top Officials Told to Testify in Muslims' Suit
By NINA BERNSTEIN / The New York Times / September 29, 2005
A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that former Attorney General John Ashcroft, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other top government officials will have to answer questions under oath in a lawsuit that accuses them of personally conspiring to violate the rights of Muslim immigrants held in a federal detention center in Brooklyn after 9/11.

The officials had sought to have the lawsuit dismissed without testimony, arguing in part that they had governmental immunity from its claims, that the court lacked jurisdiction because they live outside New York State, and that the Sept. 11 attacks created "special factors" outweighing the plaintiffs' right to sue for damages for constitutional violations.

But the judge, John Gleeson, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, rejected those arguments, allowing the case to proceed - and opening the door to depositions of Mr. Ashcroft and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, by lawyers for the two plaintiffs: Ehab Elmaghraby, an Egyptian immigrant who ran a restaurant in Times Square, and Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani immigrant whose Long Island customers knew him as "the cable guy."

The lawsuit charges that, solely because of their race, religion or national origin, the two men were physically abused and deprived of due process while being detained for more than eight months in the harsh maximum-security unit of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

The men, who eventually pleaded guilty to minor criminal charges unrelated to terrorism and were deported, charged that they were repeatedly slammed into walls and dragged across the floor while shackled and manacled.

They said they were kicked and punched until they bled, cursed as "terrorists" and "Muslim bastards," and subjected to multiple unnecessary body-cavity searches, including one in which correction officers inserted a flashlight into Mr. Elmaghraby's rectum, making him bleed.

"Our nation's unique and complex law enforcement and security challenges in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks do not warrant the elimination of remedies for the constitutional violations alleged here," Judge Gleeson wrote in his decision.

Charles Miller, a spokesman for the United States Attorney's office, said the ruling was under review. "The government has made no determination yet as to what the government's next step will be," he said.

The decision was hailed as significant by the plaintiffs' lawyers, Alexander A. Reinert, of Koob & Magoolaghan, and Haeyoung Yoon, of the Urban Justice Center.

It was also celebrated by lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought a companion lawsuit as a class action on behalf of other immigrant detainees in 2002. The government's motion to dismiss that suit, using many of the same arguments, is pending before the same judge.

"The fact that Judge Gleeson ruled that this case can keep Ashcroft on the hook -that would never happen in a regular prison-abuse case," said Rachel Meeropol, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights. "The judge understood that this isn't just a case about individuals being abused in detention. These are people who were singled out according to a policy created on the highest levels of government."

Judge Gleeson cited a scathing 2003 report by the Justice Department's inspector general that found widespread abuse of detainees at the Brooklyn center.

The report said that Mr. Ashcroft's policy was to hold detainees on any legal pretext until the F.B.I. cleared them, even though such clearances took months and many had been picked up by chance, not because they were legitimate terrorism suspects.

"The post-Sept. 11 context provides support for the plaintiffs' assertions that defendants were involved in creating and/or implementing the detention policy under which plaintiffs were confined without due process," the judge wrote.

In effect, the judge gave the plaintiffs an opportunity to try to establish the personal involvement of Mr. Ashcroft and other high-ranking defendants through discovery, rather than simply accepting the defense's argument of immunity at this early stage of the litigation.

The "qualified immunity" that shields government officials "will not allow the attorney general to carry out his national security functions wholly free from concern for his personal liability," Judge Gleeson wrote, quoting a Supreme Court decision that involved then-Attorney General John N. Mitchell's unauthorized wiretap of a radical group. "He may on occasion have to pause to consider whether a proposed course of action can be squared with the Constitution and laws of the United States."