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The Smiling Suicide Bomber
 Cüneyt Ciftci, a young man from Bavaria, blew himself up outside a government building in Afghanistan, killing two US soldiers and two Afghanis. SPIEGEL ONLINE has obtained a video documenting the final minutes in the life of the first German-born suicide bomber.It's the perpetual grin that is most disturbing. The young man looks directly into the camera. He seems cheerful in his small cap and white shalwar kameez, the traditional Afghan dress. He smiles as he hoists the heavy bags of chemicals on to his shoulders. Grinning, he points skyward to Allah. His permanent smile comes despite his knowledge -- or perhaps precisely because of it -- that he will soon die. It's impossible to hear what he is saying. Flowery suras from the Koran are dubbed over his voice. "How lucky you are, that death brings you the sunrise," sings a man's voice. "That you go to the front, that you burn in the name of Islam." Then the young man says goodbye to his companions. Before he drives off, he kneels down in the dust and prays one last time. The man is the 28-year-old German-born Turkish citizen Cüneyt Ciftci (more...), who was born in the Bavarian town of Freising. Until April 2, 2007 he lived together with his family in Ansbach. The images come from a 45-minute DVD which SPIEGEL ONLINE obtained this week in Afghanistan from the media wing of the Taliban. SPIEGEL ONLINE was first offered the film, "Source of the Jihad," in Pakistan. A middleman with contacts to the Taliban wanted to sell it for a five-figure US dollar sum. Posted by: Fred 2008-03-29 |
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