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| Middle East |
| Parents fear their children could take on suicide missions |
| 2003-07-08 |
| Palestinian families say they are increasingly fearful that their children who are committed mosque-goers are being chosen as "martyrs" and potential suicide bombers by militant Palestinian groups such as Hamas. This could be a good sign. "At first I thought it was normal when my son Mohammed, who is 18, started going to the mosque frequently, but when I found out he was watching films about suicide attacks I was worried," a Palestinian woman said in Gaza. "My son was going to the mosque late at night and early in the morning, adding to our fears," the woman, who asked to be called Suheila, said. "His behaviour changed. He became introverted, which made his father and me search his room and spy on his comings and goings." "We even locked the door to stop him going out," she added. "We later found out that those in charge of the mosque are members of Hamas, which teaches children about jihad (holy war) and shows them documentaries about suicide bombings," she said. "We are trying by every means to get the idea of suicide missions out of his head, and we recently forbade him to go to the mosque and asked him to pray at home," she said. I guess not all families are cheerfully sending their flesh and blood off to die for the cause. A branch of the hardline Islamic Jihad group said Tuesday it was responsible for a fatal explosion at a house near Tel Aviv, caused by a 22-year-old from a village near the West Bank town of Jenin. The explosion killed an elderly woman in the house and the presumed bomber, but the leadership of the group said it is still committed to a halt in anti-Israeli attacks, called last week. The Palestinian security services said Monday they had questioned a young woman arrested early Monday in the Gaza Strip who was preparing to carry out a suicide attack. The 18-year-old woman was arrested near the Karni bus station between the Gaza Strip and Israeli territory, after her family alerted police, a security source said. A belt filled with explosives was discovered at the teenager's family home in east Gaza, along with a note for her parents saying she was going to take part in a suicide attack, another source said. Neither her identity, nor the name of the organisation she was working for, were revealed. Talal Duikat, a Palestinian security official in Nablus, in the West Bank, said that "many parents inform us when their children disappear and tell us about their fears that they might carry out suicide attacks." "We find them and take them home to their parents," he said. "We don't arrest them because we can't guarantee that Israel won't kill them," he said. OK, I mocked the Palestinian police for catching this girl yesterday and turning her over to her parents. If they are really helping people stop their children from blowing themselves up, I congratulate them. It's just that I had never heard this before. A preventive security officer in the town of Tubas in the West Bank, said a Palestinian man alerted him when his son, Ahmed Abdel Menhem Daraghmeh, disappeared after evening prayers. "Ahmed was friendly with an Islamic Jihad activist who wanted him to carry out a suicide attack," he said. "We arrested two members of Jihad and it took us five hours to negotiate with the group in Jenin to hand Ahmed over to his parents in exchange for the freedom of the two activists," he said. If true, are we beginning to see a backlash against Hamas & Co.? |
| Posted by:Steve |