I agree, the Tamil Tiger bombings are important for context. I don’t mention them only because I know very little about Sri Lanka.

As for the disguised booby-traps, I would imagine that rebels warn the people living in the vicinity. The ARD article doesn’t mention examples of toy bombs (does anyone?), but cigarette lighters and cassette decks sound much like what the soldiers — mostly teenagers from the lower income bracket — might be tempted to pick up. That would be my conjecture, anyway. Google doesn’t seem to bring up anything relevant in HRW reports.

By the way, the Recent Comments bar above shows a couple of my responses to your comments under older posts. (This is just to make sure I’m not arguing with you behind your back.)

As for the booby-trapped toys, obviously both sides would blame it on the other, but I can hardly think of a reason why even the most cruel followers of Basajev would plant such. (As for ‘homemade’, aren’t all booby-trapped toys are homemade?) Tough its hard to tell when no international de-mining experts are allowed in, as German TV ARD notes. (BTW, this abomination is more common than we’d like to believe; this NATO release speaks about de-mining such in Bosnia, where IIRC both Serbs and Muslims used this ‘weapon’.)

Doug, OK, it is a useful shorthand The reason of my pickyness (I just admonished Edward for a ‘the Kurds’ too :-)) is that while normally language expresses thoughts, sometimes thoughts [not only the utterer's] are influenced by language - and I fear more direct danger to more people with ‘the Kurds’ or ‘the Chechens’ than with ‘the Russians’ or ‘the Americans’, at least presently.

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=39076

Suicide missions were of course a big deal in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. I think these belonged entirely to the realm of battlefield sacrifice, which was glorified since time immemorial. It’s very probable, given its religious Shi’a overtones, that the cult found an ideological echo in the Hezbollah bombings, aside from the apparent logistical support. Nonetheless, I think the Hezbollah is celebrated in the Arab world primarily as a traditional guerilla group. By Palestine-based I meant the cult of suicide bombings against civilians as a popular and media phenomenon, with the fame, the glorification, and all the rest. Aside from breaking the classic formula of atrocity — kill the men, rape the women, burn down the house, and spare the children (why are children special? not sure, but I think it’s something in our genes) — the Beslan massacre just like much of today’s terrorism was clearly conceived as a spectacle to be experienced in the privacy our living rooms.

Hmm…

Thousands of children in Chechnya have died or lost their limbs after stepping on land mines or picking up unexploded ordnance or homemade bombs disguised as toys, videotapes or cigarette lighters, relief agencies say.

Yes, I’ve seen reports of rebel IEDs disguised as toys, which is I think what is meant here. I remain sceptical about the claim for Afghanistan, for the same reasons that Blum mentions in the chapter I linked to. I mean, given credible evidence, I wouldn’t be shocked to note isolated acts of exceptionally perverted revenge in Afghanistan, and even in Chechnya, though the conflict there is a few notches less brutal. But, particularly as a “practice” it strikes me as rather far-fetched.

[*] I read somewhere that by far the most suicide attacks were committed by the Tamil separatists on Sri Lanka, but I don’t have it handy - and have no clue whether Iranians were influenced by their example.