THERE is nothing more terrifying to a soldier than an enemy who does not care about his safety.

The threat by a captured Iraqi general that there will be up to 4,000 more suicide bombers will have an immediate and damaging effect on coalition morale. It puts allied forces on notice that they are now going to be dealing with an enemy who is unmarked, unnoticeable and largely unstoppable. It reminds them of the many previous atrocities carried out by suicide bombers in the Middle East. And it promises dozens of incidents of twisted wreckage, mangled bodies and gruesome pictures.

The Americans know what suicide bombing can do. The image is seared into the Pentagon’s memory.

In modern times the deadly technique was used during the Second World War by Japanese kamikaze pilots, young men taught only how to take off and crash their aircraft into American warships, who inflicted huge casualties in the final days of the war.

But they have several precursors in the ancient world, the first being Samson, who, tied up and eyeless in a Gaza temple, summoned all his strength to bring down the building on himself and his tormentors.

Though they had no bombs, Leonidas and his Spartans sacrified their lives at the battle of Thermopylae in 480BC in a desperate attempt to forestall the Persian hordes long enough to permit the Greeks to build up their defences.

Suicide bombing as part of a terrorist war against US targets first made its appearance in Lebanon 20 years ago. The Shia fighters of Lebanon, fighting against Israel and Western interests, began to recruit volunteers with the promise that their deaths would be a glorious sacrifice to honour Islam.

In the 1980s, soon after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and the stationing of Western troops in Beirut as part of a peacekeeping force, they began a series of deadly attacks on US and Israeli targets. In April 1983 a bomber drove a lorry laden with explosives into the US Embassy in Beirut, destroying much of the building and killing 63 people.

Six months later the US Marine barracks beside Beirut airport was blown up in a double suicide bombing. The blasts flattened the barracks and killed 242 Americans. The devastating attack led to the withdrawal of all US forces from Beirut four months later.

The Israelis have lost even more people to suicide bombers. In November 1982 Ahmad Qassir, a 17-year-old Lebanese Shia Muslim, drove a white Mercedes packed with explosives into Israel’s military headquarters in Tyre. The blast killed 141. Qassir’s suicide signalled the start of a long campaign against Israelis.

Protection against suicide bombers is difficult. Barracks can be isolated or set back behind high walls, but all compounds need supplies. Few can deny access to anyone who is not a US soldier.

The other precaution against suicide bombers is universal suspicion. Already the mood in Iraq has changed sharply. Nervous soldiers are likely to open fire first before finding out whether a suspicious person is in the clear. Almost certainly this will lead to dozens, if not hundreds, of innocent people being killed or refused access to water or food supplies. The suicide bombers will have won an important victory in galvanising public sentiment against the Americans.

Surprisingly, the Americans appear to have been caught unawares by the bombing on Saturday. There appeared to be an assumption that, because President Saddam Hussein’s regime is secular and has long been opposed by both Shia Muslims and Muslim radical activists, it would not be able to attract volunteers for “martyrdom”.

Such assumptions ignore the strength and depth of religious feeling in Iraq and the extent to which Iraqi patriotism motivates people independently of their attitude to Saddam’s Government. Most importantly, it also ignores the power of previous example. There are plenty of Islamic radicals in Iraq. Karbala and Najaf, linked to the killing of Imam Ali, are two of the holiest sites for Shia Islam. Indeed, Najaf is the site of the tomb of Ali, the father of Imam Hussein, whose death in AD680 led to the creation of the Shia branch of Islam.

Suicide has often been seen as a cowardly death, but in wartime it takes on another aspect. The fact that the most deadly terrorist operations in recent times — the blowing up of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the September 11 atrocities — have been suicide attacks has made them peculiarly repugnant to the West. For this reason, Iraq’s announcement that it is to encourage a wave of new suicide operations appears to be a deliberate echo of the past bombings America has suffered.

Times Recommends

• Henning Mankell: ‘If Wallander was alive, I wouldn’t be a friend of his’
• Secret society's skull and crossbones for sale
• Nigerian leader vanishes after medical treatment