At the age of 11 Rajani knows exactly what he wants to be
when he grows up: a suicide terrorist.
Rajani is not a Palestinian. He lives in South Asia on the
island of Sri Lanka off India (formerly called Ceylon). His
orphanage is located on a small patch of land cleared of
jungle growth at great effort. The orphanage has a special
addition, a museum consisting of just a small, but well-kept
hut. The items on display keep all the children occupied,
particularly Rajani. Among them is a photograph of
Kantaroban, who in 1991 blew himself up in a suicide attack.
He is considered a hero to Sri Lankans.
He was not the first. He was preceded by Captain Milar, who
did the same in 1987 without hesitation. Beside his picture
is a photograph of 12 young men, volunteer soldiers belonging
to the Tamil's Freedom Panthers. When they fell into the
hands of Indian soldiers in 1987 none of them hesitated to
swallow cyanide pills in order to avoid passing on
information to their interrogators.
The Tamil rebels are fighting against the Hindi authorities.
Rajani knows the names of all of the suicide attackers and
recognizes all of their photographs. One of the details he
most identifies with is the fact that Kantaroban was also
once an orphan. Before he set out for his suicide attack
Kantaroban said he wanted to set up a children's orphanage.
Rajani's orphanage was started to honor his request. The
institution's director was himself a member of the Freedom
Panthers, an organization of terrorist "freedom fighters"
from Sri Lanka that includes a suicide unit called the Black
Panthers.
For twenty years the Tamil minority has been rebelling,
without international support, in the hope of gaining
independence. They taught the Palestinians the tremendous
power of suicide terrorism.
"They operate on land and sea, dressed in black uniforms,"
says Rajani. "They are prepared to handle anything."
In July of 1987 Captain Milar set a precedent in the annals
of Tamil suicide terrorism, and international terrorism as
well, when he rammed a truck filled with explosives into an
army base, killing 40 soldiers. A new "culture" was begun.
The Panthers did not invent terrorism or suicide attacks. The
art of assassination was invented by a secret order of
Muslims during the Crusades that terrorized Christians and
other enemies through clandestine killings. In fact the word
"assassination" can be traced to these early terrorists. In
World War II the Japanese sent kamikaze pilots to crash
planes loaded with explosives into US Navy destroyers.
But the Panthers refined the technique so highly that it has
become a field of study in military academies. In the Middle
East the Palestinians hastened to adopt their techniques
enthusiastically, soon surpassing their mentors.
"Of all the terrorist groups we have researched, they [the
Tamil rebels] are the cruelest and most disciplined," says
Rohan Gunaratna, of the Center for Research on Terror and
Political Violence at Scotland's Andrews University.
According to his calculations, the Panthers have carried out
more than half of the suicide attacks in the entire world.
The Palestinians have carried out dozens of suicide
operations; al-Qaeda carried out three, with stupefying
results on September 11th, but the Panthers have executed 220
terrorist operations.
The Palestinians generally use men, although there have been
a few female suicide bombers. The Panthers use any bodies
available, including children and animals on some occasions.
They have been known to dispatch exploding dogs and even
exploding boats and ships. They assassinated one Sri Lankan
president, wounded another and killed a former Indian prime
minister. They have assassinated ministers, mayors and Tamil
leaders opposed to terrorism.
Through their terror attacks the Panthers wiped out one-
third of the Sri Lankan navy and sank oil tankers. They
bombed the airport in the capital city of Colombo,
archaeological sites important to Buddhists and Colombo's
international trade center. Unlike the Palestinians they do
not target civilians, but have anyway killed hundreds, if not
thousands, in the course of their attacks.
In 2000, when al-Qaeda carried out an attack on the destroyer
U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, Susai, head of the Sea Panthers,
was interviewed on the BBC. He boasted that al-Qaeda had
simply imitated the Panthers. The Panthers have achieved
extremely high levels of sophistication in their terrorist
operations. Clothes worn by suicide bombers are so highly
developed that the explosives hidden inside are very hard to
detect. They invest considerable effort into planning, and
scout targets painstakingly.
For the sake of Sri Lankan residents the Panthers have
declared a cease-fire and are currently holding talks with
the government in the hopes of reaching an agreement. In the
meantime there have been no terrorist attacks. The
international press took advantage of the cease-fire to visit
the area, and to make firsthand observations of events in the
field.
Reporters discovered a world resembling what takes place in
the Territories in Israel. The entire Tamil area deifies the
killers, and is saturated with the idea of self-sacrifice.
Pictures of suicide attackers hang everywhere and films of
the attacks themselves are shown. The Palestinians have not
tried this so far, since Israeli broadcasters have been
providing them this service.
Obtaining the tapes is not difficult. Disks with songs of
praise for the Black Panthers and video coverage of their
attack on the Colombo airport are available at the Panthers'
administrative headquarters. Tamil publicity is ubiquitous.
Alongside a main highway, foreign journalists spotted a large
billboard with posters aimed at women explaining how to carry
out a suicide attack with the most lethal results possible.
If injured during the attack, the poster teaches, they should
lie still and pretend to be dead. Only when "the enemy"
approaches should they detonate their explosive device, in
order to kill as many people as possible. Every fighter
carries a small cyanide pill. If captured alive he is to end
his life rather than pass on information to the enemy.
The Panthers were the first to transform suicide into a long-
term, multidimensional weapon. The Tamils comprise one-fourth
of the total population of Sri Lanka and, like the
Palestinians, they see suicide as a means of "balancing" the
number of casualties on both sides. The Panthers' political
leaders consider suicide attacks a legitimate weapon, saying,
"It guarantees maximal damage with minimal loss of life." On
the Tamil side, that is.
Still there are differences between the Palestinians and the
Tamils. Officially the Panthers dissociate themselves from
arbitrary attacks against civilians, and are not prepared to
claim responsibility for excessively devastating attacks or
attacks in which civilians were killed. For example, despite
their pride over blowing up the Colombo airport, to this day
they have been unwilling to admit responsibility for the
attack. But the truth is tacitly known even to children.
