| Description |
1 videodisc (DVD) (120 min.) : sd., col. ; 4 3/4 in. |
| Summary |
"The Cult of the Suicide Bomber is a gripping two-part series, which reveals the secret history of the suicide bomber, from the child martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war, the truck bombers in southern Lebanon, to the young men and women who now strap explosives to their bodies and calmly blow up themselves and hundreds of others in the streets of the Middle East. The series is presented by former CIA spy, Robert Baer, who returns to a former theatre of operations, the Middle East, to trace the origins of the modern day bomber. There is no good news here for the fearful and uncertain in the West, but Baer does present a clear landscape of where and how the "pathological virus'' has thrived and from whence its notions of honour and glory emerged. The first film starts with the fascinating story of the world's first suicide bomber, who arose in the Iran-Iraq war and is now a hero in Iran. Hossein Fahmideh was a tender 13-year-old in 1980, when he threw himself under an Iraqi tank and blew up himself and the tank's occupants. His highly decorated grave is in the graveyard of martyrs just outside Tehran, which Baer visits. "Like the city of the dead'' he says. Baer points out that the suicide of such martyrs was different from today's in that it was a battlefield strategy in an often gruesome trench war. Former CIA agent Robert Baer follows the trail of the suicide bomber cult as it spreads into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Using footage of actual suicide bombings and featuring interviews with families of suicide bombers, the relatives of victims and Israeli intelligence agents, Baer pieces together the extraordinary story of the first Palestinian master bomber, a man who transformed suicide bombing from a weapon of war into a weapon of terror. "-- ABC website |
| Notes |
Off-air recording of ABC-TV broadcast November 14 and 21, 2005. Copied under Part VA of the Copyright Act |
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DVD |
| Credits |
Produced and directed by David Batty, Kevin Toolis |
| Performer |
Presenter, Robert Baer |
| Notes |
Available for Deakin University staff and students only |
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Rating:M |
| Subject |
Suicide bombers
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| Author |
Batty, David
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Toolis, Kevin
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Baer, Robert
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ABC-TV (Australia)
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