The existence of a "waiting list" to become a suicide bomber was revealed last year by a British militant from Derby, UK, who later went on to participate in a suicide car bombing that killed several people, including a police official in Baiji, Iraq this past November.
Kabir Ahmed, called Abu Sammyh Al Brittani by IS, told BBC's Panorama, "Everybody's got their name on the list…everybody wants to fight."
And apparently, personal politics are playing into who gets pushed up that list towards the coveted opportunity to give one's life while taking others in the process, in the hopes of a trip straight to heaven.
The Saudis "Have Got Things Sewn Up"
A report from a pro-Islamic State preacher in Russia’s Republic of Dagestan claims that Saudi militants are giving their family and friends preference on this lists, much to the chagrin of recruits arriving from abroad without the requisite social connections to be tapped for martyrdom.
Kamil Abu Sultan al-Daghestani told Radio Free Europe about the nepotism described to him by a Chechen fighter, Akhmed Chatayev (Akhmad al-Shishani) who heads an IS battalion. Abu Sultan's report, titled "Corruption In Dawlah" (ISIL), was posted to a website, Qonah, believed to be associated with Islamic militants from the North Caucasus region.
The article describes the disappointment of fighters in Syria who end up dying in combat before they make their way up the martyrdom waiting list.
"Amir [Leader] Akhmed 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 veeeeery long queue [of several thousand people]," Abu Sultan wrote, according to RFE.
But the frustrated would-be bomber found a whole new set of problems once he reached Iraq.
"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 using (connections)," he reportedly told Chatayev.
Abu Sultan's conclusion was to go to the men at the top, to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
"Well, what I say is, things can't be left as they are, we should complain to the caliph," Abu Sultan wrote.
Abu Sultan recently posted on a social networking site that both Baghdadi's own brother and the son of his second-in-command had successfully completed suicide missions.
"In spite of everything, while we have such leaders, Allah will not allow this state [IS] to be humiliated," Abu Sultan wrote.
