Iraq suicide bomber was Australian teenager

Canberra, July 21 (IANS) A suicide bomber, who attacked Iraq’s capital city of Baghdad last week, was identified as an 18-year-old Australian, authorities said Monday.

The attack occurred Thursday, near a Shia mosque in the main market of Shorja area, Xinhua reported.

The Islamic State, formerly known as Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), named the teenager, Abu Bakr al-Australi.

According to officials, the teenager from Melbourne is the second Australian suicide bomber in Iraq.

The Islamic State…

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

“So, when one wants to blow up, how does one choose where?”

Most of the suicide bombers are converts or clanless people desperate to fit in someplace. A recruiter finds them and hands them over to a network. From that point forward they are never alone. They get channeled along to the area where a section commander will decide on the target. Depending on the network and individual the would-be bomber gets sex, drugs and is made to feel special. He makes his martyr video. All along there’s peer pressure and expectation to keep him in line. Then, depending on a lot of factors he gets suited up with a bomb that’s remotely detonated or one he detonates himself. But the answer to your question is (and I don’t know the actual term) the commander on the scene.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.