Profiles in Killing

Ahmed Rawi, 30, was an Iraqi teacher in Fallujah and a father of two. He was also an explosives expert as well who was active in an insurgent group known as the Mujahidin Army.  After two of his brothers were killed in fighting, he decided to join them in paradise.  "His work was most appreciated by our family," says his older brother Abdullah, 45 (not his real name). "My mother was always praying for him." About a week before Abdullah last saw his brother, he remembers a conversation where Ahmed said he was ready to carry out a suicide attack. Ahmed seems to have chosen the date carefully; he killed himself on April 8, 2005,—the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. He rammed a Toyota sedan rigged with explosives into a passing American convoy near Fallujah. "As a family, we are very proud of Ahmed," says Abdullah. But by their yardstick, Ahmed may have sold his life cheaply; only one death, that of a Marine, was reported in Fallujah that day.

Rawi is one of many bombers who suffered a traumatic loss before undertaking a mission.  Bilal Ahmed, 22, was considered a typical Iraqi college student and a football fanatic. He played on a local team and plastered posters of his favorite player Ronaldinho across his room. Bilal's younger brother Musab, an 18-year old high school student, says the trouble started on a cold night last November. The distant sound of crackling gunfire got closer and closer to their home in Hurriya until a large number of armed militiamen were marching through Bilal's street. "You're not welcome in this city anymore. It's your last night here," one of the gunmen shouted. "Come out of your houses, you infidel Sunnis!" A firefight broke out between the gunmen and several neighborhood residents. Bilal's father grabbed an AK-47 and ran to the roof, despite screaming protests from his mother and sisters. There was a heavy exchange of gunfire as Bilal's father shot at the gunmen, who the family thought were members of the Shiite Mahdi Army, from the roof of the house. Within minutes, Bilal's father was shot in the shoulder. A number of gunmen broke into the house and shot him in the head. They threw the body down into the yard. "Bilal swore he would take revenge on the Mahdi Army that night," says Musab. "This became his only goal in life."

After his father's death, Bilal abandoned his studies and the football matches. He became more introverted and began reading the Qur'an and listening to religious lectures on tapes. He frequently went out to pray at the local mosque and sometimes disappeared for a number of days without contacting his family. Once, his brother Musab recalls, Bilal asked the local imam about suicide bombing and the imam told him there are other ways to confront the enemy. In an interview, the imam at Bilal's local mosque in Adel, Sheikh Ahmed, reiterated his opposition to suicide bombing. But he didn't condemn fighting against Americans. "Fighting the occupiers is a religious and national duty," Sheikh Ahmed said. "History has taught us that occupiers can never be builders. They came for their own interests and to destroy our great Islamic values."

The last time Musab saw Bilal was in late February this year. "He asked me to be strong and to take care of our sisters and mother," says Musab. "It was just like he was making his will." He didn't hear anything more from Bilal until he received a strange text message on March 1. "Yesterday, Bilal was blessed with the martyrdom that will lead him to paradise. He carried out a heroic act by exploding his car at a police station in Baghdad, killing a group of traitorous police." Musab was stunned. "It was a big shock to me and my mother and all of the family," Musab says. "It was even worse than my father's death." One week later, Musab received a series of phone calls from strangers who claimed to be Bilal's friends. Their accents sounded Iraqi. They offered money to help with Bilal's funeral and asked to meet Musab in person to give him the cash. "I got the impression that these guys misled my brother," Musab says. "I felt the money was just a price for my brother's life, a thing that I would never accept."

Bilal too sold his life cheaply.  His attack on a police station—most Iraqi police are Shia—succeeded only in killing two innocent bystanders and no cops.

Attitudes were strikingly different in the family of an Iraqi woman suicide bomber, Muna (her family requested that their names be changed as a condition of speaking frankly), a 23-year-old medical student. Muna became obsessed with the case of American soldiers charged with raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl in Mahmoudiya, family members say. She began cursing Americans, and praying intensely; she sought out videos of insurgent operations, and whenever she heard of Americans being killed, she passed out candy to neighbors. One day she asked her parents for approval to carry out a "martyrdom operation."  Her father simply walked out of the room; her mother consented. "I wish I would have seen her wedding, but she chose her way and we did not object," says her mother, Fatima. "We believe Allah has taken her to paradise." Her attack apparently killed one U.S. soldier and three Iraqi civilians in Fallujah on Nov. 25, 2006.