You’d be forgiven for thinking that the hottest ticket in ISIS controlled territory is their five star hotel or given their penchant for rape, the slave market.
Yet the Saudi militants in ISIS are most interested in getting to the top of the suicide bombing wait lists, according to a frustrated Chechen militant. They’re specifically using nepotism to ensure friends and family members get bumped to the top.
In a post on a website linked to a Chechen ISIS battalion, Kamil Abu Sultan ad-Daghestani loudly complained that Chechens are being robbed of their once in a lifetime chance to blow themselves up because of the Saudis.
“Those Saudis have got things sewn up. They won’t let anyone in. They are letting their relatives go to the front of the line” said the disgruntled terrorist.
Connections are, in fact, the only way to skip the line to become a suicide bomber. This non-merit based process is now resulting in ISIS fighters issuing complaints to their commanders.
A recently captured ISIS guidebook explicitly mentioned the large supply of suicide bombers, informing potential “martyrs” that they need to be patient after their training period, as there would be a waiting list.
This list, according to Abu Sultan, can reach up to several months. This leads to some ISIS fighters dying before getting the chance to commit suicide.
Militants are becoming so desperate to get to the top of the list that they’re travelling to other parts of the battlefield in hopes of speeding up the process, according to Abu Sultan, who heard the story from the head of Chechen ISIS militants, Abu Omar al-Shishani.
“Amir (leader) al-Shishani told me about a young lad who went to Iraq for a suicide mission, and he went there because in Sham (Syria) there is a very long queue (of several thousand people)” said al-Shishani, according to Abu Sultan.
The suicide bomber waiting lists have been a problem for ISIS since at least July 2014 when a A British ISIL member first revealed the issue to BBC’s “Panorama” TV show.
That fighter, Kabir Ahmed, was fighting in Syria during the time of the interview, and told the BBC that he was attempting to “get his name pushed up the list.”
Death by suicide bombing is in high demand from senior ISIS members for purely tactical reasons, not theological ones, says Thomas Pierret of the University of Edinburgh.
“In my view, the tactical advantage of suicide VBIEDs [vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices] largely outweighs their symbolic or propaganda value, hence ISIS’ heavy reliance on them,” Pierret said to Radio Free Europe.
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