UN: Afghan suicide bombers trained in Pakistan

More than 80% of suicide bombers in Afghanistan are recruited and trained in neighbouring Pakistan, the United Nations said today in a report that showed attacks running at record levels this year.

Most of the perpetrators in Afghanistan were poor, young and uneducated, according to the report, which was based on interviews with failed attackers in Afghanistan, other militants and security officials.

The report urged US and Nato forces to try to prevent civilian casualties, avoid humiliating property searches and if possible deploy forces from Muslim nations as ways to blunt support for the bombers.

“The first line of defence consists of understanding and removing ’root causes’ that create demand for terrorism,” the 137-page report said.

Suicide attacks – either from militants wearing bombs on their bodies or driving cars packed with explosives – have emerged as a key tactic in an increasingly bloody uprising by Taliban militants against foreign troops and the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

In 2006, there were 123 recorded suicide attacks in Afghanistan, up from just 17 the year before, the report said. As of the end of August, there have been 103 such attacks, setting up 2007 to be the bloodiest year yet, the UN said.

While the targets were exclusively military or government, 80% of the 183 victims until June this year were civilian, it said.

The report also noted the bombs were not claiming more lives per attack, suggesting little sustained innovation in technique. It said this contradicted a widely repeated assessment that expertise from Iraqi insurgents was being imported into Afghanistan.

While the report stressed many, if not most, of the attackers were Afghan nationals, it also underlined the importance of refugee camps and Islamic schools in tribal areas of Pakistan in the recruitment and training of the bombers.

“The phenomenon of suicide attacks in Afghanistan is inherently linked to a variety of structures and institutions across the border in Pakistan,” it said.

“Without dedicated efforts to destroy safe havens and bastions of support across the border, violence in Afghanistan is unlikely to disappear.”

The report cited a senior Taliban commander as saying “over 80%” of bombers pass through training facilities in the Waziristan region of Pakistan. It said the commander’s views had been verified and he had direct knowledge of the policy of the Pakistan-based Taliban military shura, or council.

Pakistan, which is also battling a surge in suicide attacks, has admitted that Taliban fighters find safe haven on its side of the border and has deployed tens of thousands of troops there to try and uproot them.

The report’s authors interviewed 23 people in jail in Kabul convicted or awaiting trial in connection with suicide attacks. Twenty-one were Afghan nationals, though most had spent time as refugees in Pakistan.

While noting that only being able to interview bombers who failed in their mission would not produce a representative view of bombers’ motives, the report said many were apparently angered at the behaviour of foreign troops, whom they perceived as being occupying forces, and at Karzai, who they said was a Western puppet.