An Afghan bomber's tale sheds light on motives

KABUL (Reuters) - Mumtaz Ahmad spent more than three years at a madrasa in Pakistan learning the Koran, then pursued his pious desire to become a Qari' -- one who recites the Muslim holy book -- at a similar Islamic religious school in Kabul.

His extended family's mud-brick home in the village of Mahiger is just 2 km (one mile) down dirt tracks from the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan at Bagram, 60 km (37 miles) north of Kabul.

Two of his 10 brothers are stationed at the base as soldiers in the Afghan army and a cousin earns a living there as a laborer for the Americans, according to relatives.

The money comes in handy, said Ahmad's uncle, Sayed Agha, a wizened man of 60. He said the base had brought work to many of Mahiger's simple farming families since U.S.-led forces overthrew the radical Islamist Taliban five years ago.

Now, Ahmad languishes in an Afghan intelligence service jail after police caught him three weeks ago planting a roadside bomb on the Shomali Plain near Bagram in an act he says was driven by a belief that killing foreign troops was his Islamic duty.

It was his third attempted bomb attack this year and all three had failed, Ahmad, 22, said in an interview in a bare, unheated office at the lock-up in central Kabul.

"They beat me when I got here because they wanted me to give them information," Ahmad said as two senior intelligence service investigators listened to his words.

"It's just as well they did because I gave them the name of an accomplice. If I hadn't informed on him, there might have been some sort of attack," he said.

The investigators declined a request from Reuters to leave the room during the interview, saying they needed to make sure Ahmad was telling the truth.

LURED INTO ACTION

Ahmad said he had been lured into becoming a bomber by a shadowy man called Abdul Rahman who would visit his madrasa in Kabul to incite students to attack foreign troops in the name of the Prophet Mohammad.

The young man's account could not be independently confirmed but it was broadly similar in its religious aspects to the published stories of other suspected bombers interviewed in detention in Afghanistan.

The country has experienced its worst violence since 2001 this year as a resurgent Taliban battles Afghan and British-led NATO forces.

Of the almost 3,800 people killed, a quarter have been civilians, many of them victims of a sharp rise in the number of suicide attacks and other bombings in Kabul and elsewhere.

Investigators, with only rudimentary means, say they have had limited success in arresting would-be bombers.

Though Ahmad was caught, one of the investigators said, police believe "Abdul Rahman" had been lurking in the area ready to detonate the bomb by remote control but got away.

"We haven't had as much success as we need. We've had cases where we've made an arrest but the rest of the cell broke up and its members disappeared," the investigator said.

He said the intelligence service had identified 17 suicide bomber cells since March and arrested 24 people, including three Pakistanis, but in other instances suspects had been released for lack of evidence.

The officer would not be identified by name, saying it was against intelligence service policy.

FAMILY SHOCKED

Ahmad, a slim, bearded man, said he had left Afghanistan while the Taliban was in power to study for three-and-a-half years at a madrasa in Peshawar, across the border in Pakistan.

He returned home soon after Taliban rule collapsed in November 2001 and began attending the Kabul madrasa, where he was one of up to 200 students.

He said "Abdul Rahman" had used religion to talk him into working as a courier and had given him the 3.5 kg (8 pounds) of explosives that he had buried in a vineyard until the man telephoned him and told where to drop it.

"I really regret what has happened, what I did. I realize now that these foreign forces came here to help us, not disgrace us," he said. "It's too late now. I know I was deceived."

He has not been charged and says he does not know how long he may spend in prison.

Ahmad's family insist they had no idea what he was up to.

"All we knew is that he was a Qari'," said his uncle Sayed Agha. "He spent all his time praying in the madrasa."

The police still had not told the family he had been arrested or why and the family had not asked, the old man added.

"We were watching television and all of a sudden we saw him and heard he had been arrested," Sayed Agha said. "His father was shocked when he saw him."

(Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin and Ahmad Masood)