Types of suicide tactic
- Suicide attack on foot: explosive belt, satchel charge
- Attempted suicide attack with a plane as target: Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63
- Suicide car bomb: 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, Sri Lankan Central Bank bombing, numerous incidents in Iraq since 2003
- Suicide attack by a boat with explosives: USS Cole bombing, attacks in Sri Lanka by the LTTE Sea Tigers.
- Suicide attack by a submarine with explosives (human-steered torpedo): Kaiten, used by Japan in World War II
- Suicide attack by donkey: Donkey bombs were a speciality of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru.
- Suicide attack by a woman (Thenmuli Rajaratnam) wearing a belt with explosives or a bra bomb : Assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
- Suicide attack by a bicycle with explosives: Assassination of Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
- Suicide attack by a hijacked plane with fuel: September 11, 2001 attacks, possibly Air France Flight 8969 and attempted by Samuel Byck
- Suicide attack by diverting a bus to an abyss: Tel Aviv Jerusalem bus 405 massacre
- Suicide attack with guns: Kashmiri insurgents on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 killing 15 people.
There can be issues in identifying if a bombing was in fact a suicide bombing, but this varies in different regions. This issue with identifying attacks as suicide bombings is not such a problem in places like Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, where suicide bombing is an overt strategy against the Israelis that has won the backing of both Hamas and Fatah, particularly the former. For example, between October 2000 and October 2006 there were 167 clearly identified suicide bomber attacks, with 51 other types of suicide attack. Suicide attacks are also a common feature of the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There have also been suicide attacks in Western Europe and the United States. The September 11th World Trade Centre bombings killed 3000 people in New York in 2001.A further attack in London on 7 July 2005 killed 52 people.
In short, suicide tactics have become common place in the modern world, with attacks on a global scale as part of diverse regional conflicts.
A 2007 study in Afghanistan, a country with a growing number of suicide bombings, found 80% of the suicide attackers had some kind of physical or mental disability. Also in contrast to earlier findings of suicide bombers, the Afghan bombers were "not celebrated like their counterparts in other Arab nations. Many subsequent studies of suicide attackers' backgrounds have not shown such a correlation. Use of suicide terror against civilian targets has differing effects on the attackers' goals (see reaction below). The doctrine of asymmetric warfare views suicide attacks as a result of an imbalance of power, in which groups with little significant power resort to suicide bombing as a convenient tactic (see advantages noted above) to demoralize the targeted civilians or government leadership of their enemies. Suicide bombing may also take place as a perceived response to actions or policies of a group with greater power. Groups which have significant power have no need to resort to suicide bombing to achieve their aims; consequently, suicide bombing is overwhelmingly used by guerrillas, and other irregular fighting forces. According to Robert Pape, director of the Chicago Project on suicide terrorism and expert on suicide bombers, 95% of suicide attacks in recent times have the same specific strategic goal: to cause an occupying state to withdraw forces from a disputed territory. In one year, in one Muslim country alone - 2004 in Iraq - there were 400 suicide attacks and 2,000 casualties. Still others argue that perceived religious rewards in the hereafter are instrumental in encouraging Muslims to commit suicide attacks.
The ritualistic communion of the extremist groups to which they belong ("lone wolf" suicide bombers are rare), in addition to their strongly-held beliefs, helps motivate their decision to commit suicide.
Religious motivation
224 of 300 suicide terror attacks from 1980 to 2003 compiled by the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism involved Islamist groups or terrorist acts in Muslim-majority lands. Another tabulation found a massive increase in suicide bombings in the two years following Papes study and that the overwhelming majority of these bombers were motivated by the ideology of Islamist martyrdom. According to still another estimate, as of early 2008, 1,121 Muslim suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Iraq alone.
Pape suggests that foreign occupation is the principal motivation for suicide attacks:
Suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation rather than a product of Islamic fundamentalism. From 1980 to early 2004, 95% of suicide attacks had the central objective of compelling a democratic state with military forces on territory that the terrorists prize to take those forces out. In preparation for attacks, suicide terrorists typically recited passages from the Quran.
Some Sunni scholars reject suicide. However, some top authorities support suicide attacks on perceived enemies of Islam. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, sometimes called "the world's most quoted independent Islamic jurist", has called martyrdom operations:
Shortly after 9/11 the Sheikh Tantawy issued a statement opposing suicide attacks. Again in mid-2003 he was quoted again as saying "groups which carried out suicide bombings were the enemies of Islam."
"What's the difference between suicide, which the Koran condemns, and martyrdom?" "Suicide," he replied, "is done out of despair. Since the four suicide bombings in London, there have been many scholastic refutations of suicide bombings from Sunni Muslims. Ihsanic Intelligence, a London-based Islamic think-tank, published their two-year study into suicide bombings in the name of Islam, titled 'The Hijacked Caravan', which concluded that, "The technique of suicide bombing is anathema, antithetical and abhorrent to Sunni Islam. The Oxford-based Malayist jurist, Shaykh Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti, issued his landmark fatwa on suicide bombing and targeting innocent civilians, titled 'Defending the Transgressed, by Censuring the Reckless against the Killing of Civilians', where he states suicide bombing in its most widespread form, is forbidden: 'If the attack involves a bomb placed on the body or placed so close to the bomber that when the bomber detonates it the bomber is certain [yaqin] to die, then the More Correct Position according to us is that it does constitute suicide. In January 2006, one of Shia Islam's highest ranking Marja clerics, Ayatollah al-Udhma Yousof al-Sanei also decreed a fatwa against suicide bombing, declaring it as a "terrorist act".
Interviews with friends of the 9/11 suicide pilots reveal they weren't "recruited" into Qaeda. 3. Hamas's most sustained suicide bombing campaign in 2003-4 involved several buddies from Hebron's Masjad (mosque) al-Jihad soccer team. At least eight team members were dispatched to suicide shooting and bombing operations by the Hamas military leader in Hebron, Abdullah al-Qawasmeh (killed by Israeli forces in June 2003 and succeeded by his relatives Basel al-Qawasmeh, killed in September 2003, and Imad al-Qawasmeh, captured on 13 October 2004). In retaliation for the assassinations of Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (22 March 2004) and Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi (17 April 2004), Imad al-Qawasmeh dispatched Ahmed al-Qawasmeh and Nasim al-Ja'abri for a suicide attack on two buses in Beer Sheva (31 August 2004). In December 2004, Hamas declared a halt to suicide attacks.
On 4 February 2008, two friends (Mohammed Herbawi, Shadi Zghayer), who were members of the Masjad al-Jihad soccer team, staged a suicide bombing at commercial center in Dimona, Israel. Herbawi had previously been arrested as a 17-year-old on 15 March 2003 shortly after a suicide bombing on Haifa bus (by Mamoud al-Qawasmeh on 5 March 2003) and coordinated suicide shooting attacks on Israeli settlements by others on the team (7 March 2003, Muhsein, Hazem al-Qawasmeh, Fadi Fahuri, Sufian Hariz) and before another set of suicide bombings by team members in Hebron and Jerusalem on May 17-18, 2003 (Fuad al-Qawasmeh, Basem Takruri, Mujahed al-Ja'abri). A Japanese Mitsubishi Zero's suicide attack on a US escort carrier in 1945
The Japanese Navy also used both one and two man piloted torpedoes called kaiten on suicide missions. Though extremely hazardous, these midget submarine attacks were not technically suicide missions, as the earlier kaitens had escape hatches. Suicide attacks were used as a military tactic aimed at causing material damage in war, during the Second World War in the Pacific as Allied ships were attacked by Japanese kamikaze pilots who caused maximum damage by flying their explosive-laden aircraft into military targets, not focused on civilian targets.
Until then, no group involved in terrorism had conducted such a suicide operation in Israel. Former Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi was the first and most high-profile victim of female suicide bombing. The Islamic Dawa Party's car bombing of the Iraqi embassy in Beirut in December 1981 and Hezbollah's bombing of the U.S. embassy in April 1983 and attack on United States Marine and French barracks in October 1983 brought suicide bombings international attention. (The latter of these groups sent the first recorded female suicide bomber in 1985 . Suicide bombing is a popular tactic among Palestinian militant organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. In Israel, Palestinian suicide bombers have targeted civilian buses, restaurants, shopping malls, hotels and marketplaces.
The passenger jets selected were required to be fully fueled to fly cross-country, turning the planes themselves into the largest suicide bombs in history. In the lead up to the Iraqi parliamentary election, on 30 January 2005, suicide attacks upon civilian and security personnel involved with the elections increased, and there were reports of the insurgents co-opting disabled people as involuntary suicide bombers.
In the first eight months of 2008, Pakistan overtook Iraq and Afghanistan in suicide-bomb with 28 bombings killing 471 people.
Suicide bombing has become the archetype of Muslim violence — not just to frightened Westerners but also to Muslims themselves.
The 7th July 2005 London suicide bombers caught on CCTV at Luton train station at 07:21 BST on July 7, 2005. Response to suicide attacks
World leaders, especially those of countries that experience suicide bombings, usually express resolve to continue on their previous course of affairs after such attacks. Suicide bombings are sometimes followed by reprisals. As a successful suicide bomber cannot be targeted, the response is often a targeting of those believed to have sent the bomber. It is more difficult to determine whether Palestinian suicide bombings have proved to be a successful tactic. In response to the suicide bombings, Sharon's government has imposed restrictions on the Palestinian community, making commerce, travel, school, and other aspects of life difficult for the Palestinians, with the average Palestinian suffering due to the choices of the suicide bombers. The Separation barrier under construction seem to be part of the Israeli government's efforts to stop suicide bombers from entering Israel proper.
If the objective is to kill as many people as possible, suicide bombing by terrorists may thus "work" as a tactic in that it costs fewer lives than any conventional military tactic and targeting unarmed civilians is much easier than targeting soldiers. Terrorist campaigns involving the targeting of civilians have never won a war. Often extremists assert that, because they are outclassed militarily, suicide bombings are necessary. The usage of the term "suicide bombing" dates back to at least 1940 . A 4 March 1942 article refers to a Japanese attempt at a "suicide bombing" on an American carrier.
The term denotes one who died in order to testify his faith in God (Allah), for example those who die while waging jihad bis saif; it is applied to suicide bombers, by the Palestinian Authority among others, in part to overcome Islamic strictures against suicide. This term has been embraced by Hamas, Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah and other Palestinian factions engaging in suicide bombings. Some effort has been made to replace the term suicide bombing with the term homicide bombing by conservative commentators and news outlets. For instance, Timothy McVeigh and Theodore Kaczynski could both ostensibly be called "homicide bombers," but neither could be called a "suicide bomber." The term was coined in 2002 by Canadian member of parliament Irwin Cotler, in an effort to replace the term homicide bomber as a substitute for "suicide bomber."
