Nampaknya kaum mujahididin ini menghalalkan segala cara sebelum melakukan
aksinya, termasuk memakai narkoba dan pesta seks untuk menambah keberanian.
Siapa yang mengajarkan kepada mereka bahwa aksi HARAM tersebut menjadi HALAL
demi JIHAD? Sungguh memuakkan!
Were the Mumbai Terrorists Fueled by Coke?
By BRUCE CRUMLEY Bruce Crumley – 1 hr 9 mins ago
Did the jihadists who tore up Mumbai last week rely on party drugs usually
associated with Western decadence to stay awake and alert throughout their
three-day killing spree? Britain's Telegraph newspaper suggests that they did,
citing unidentified officials claiming physical evidence shows the assailants
used cocaine and other stimulants to sustain their violent frenzy. And if the
notion of self-anointed holy warriors on a coke binge sounds incongruous, the
report also maintains that the killers imbibed the psychedelic drug LSD while
fighting advancing security forces.
"We found injections containing traces of cocaine and LSD left behind by the
terrorists, and later found drugs in their blood," the Telegraph was told by
one official, whose nationality and relation to the investigation were not
specified. "This explains why they managed to battle the commandos for over 50
hours with no food or sleep." (See the terrorism in Mumbai.)
The hallucinogenic and sensory-distorting effects of LSD make it an unlikely
combat drug, even for kamikaze assailants who were, after all, seeking to kill
as many people as possible before their own inevitable death. But the
suggestion that the Mumbai jihadists may have amped themselves up on stimulants
typically forbidden by their strict Salafist brand of Islam strikes some
experts as plausible, particularly within the twisted jihadist logic in which
holy ends justify impious means.
"We've never seen instances of operatives using drugs in attacks before, but
we've also never seen the kind of open-ended, insurgent-style strike of
civilian targets by Islamists prior to Mumbai," says Jean-Louis BruguiÈre, who
retired this year as France's chief counterterrorism investigator to take a top
post in the transatlantic Terrorist Finance Tracking Program. BruguiÈre had no
information to confirm or deny the reported cocaine binge by the Mumbai
assailants, but he believes that discounting it out of hand would be naive.
"Why wouldn't attackers do something forbidden by their religious practice - to
take drugs or anything else - that could help them achieve what they consider
the far more important goal of their plot in striking a blow for God?"
BruguiÈre asks. "Adepts of the Takfir wal-Hijra sect will adopt what Islam
considers impure behavior of enemy societies, like drinking alcohol, eating
pork and wild living, to better prepare attacks for those same societies.
That's what Mohamed Atta and the other 9/11 attackers did while plotting in the
U.S. If terrorists feel jihad justifies impious acts to prepare strikes, why
wouldn't that rationalization also apply to carrying attacks out?"
Independent French terrorism expert Roland Jacquard is a little more skeptical
of the report, however, at least as far as it claimed some of the fighters had
used narcotics to numb themselves to pain as death approached. Though he
understands the strategic logic of assailants using stimulants to overcome
fatigue as their attack wears on - conventional armies, including the U.S.
military, have used stimulants to counter combat fatigue - he does not believe
the stern Salafist prohibition of soporifics would be ignored as the end loomed.
"We're talking about people who think they're killing for God and who are
certain they'll attain paradise by slaying innocent people. The most powerful
drug they could ever find is already in their head before the attack starts,"
says Jacquard. "There's a very strong antidrug culture among Salafists - most
don't even use tobacco. And extremists with any drug experience usually say
Islam is what allowed them escape it."
The Telegraph story also quotes an official saying traces of steroids had been
found in the bloodstreams of Mumbai attackers - something the unnamed source
says "isn't uncommon in terrorists." If so, it's a well-kept secret that runs
counter to jihadists' disdain of external "impurities" being used to attain
physical fitness they often extol. But for BruguiÈre, wrangling over those
kinds of details is simply a counterproductive attempt to create a precise,
predictable stereotype of a terrorist in what is, in fact, a diverse, rapidly
changing, amorphous milieu of extremists. (Read "Mumbai's Terror Is Over, but
Panic Persists.")
"It's now clear the Mumbai group was connected to the Pakistan-supported
Lashkar-e-Taiba, but it takes a while before we know how close and structured
that relationship was and how much autonomy the attacking unit was operating
with," BruguiÈre says. "LeT is keen to export its fight throughout the region
and world but will do so in loose relationships with myriad extremist movements
out there. Some will use car explosions, others kamikaze bombers, and others
insurgent terrorists who - just maybe - decide to use drugs to keep their
strike going longer. If we want to prepare for the way we may be attacked next,
we have to start considering all the ways we haven't been attacked yet, as well
as the ones we know."