Are suicide bombers kamikazes?

By Marylou Barry

Japan's former ambassador to Lebanon, Naoto Amaki, had a telling conversation with Hezbollah's Sheik Hassan Nasrallah shortly following al-Qaida's September 2001 attack on America.

"He told me, 'We learned how to do suicide missions from the kamikazes,'" Amaki recounted. "Nasrallah said the Shiites all commend the Japanese 'samurai spirit.'" But the ambassador rejected Nasrallah's twisted tribute.

Are shahids kamikazes? No way, say the real kamikazes. Now octogenarian veterans, Japanese kamikaze survivors deeply resent being compared to terrorists and don't hesitate to explain why. more