Suicide Terrorism

Suicide terrorism involves the intentional sacrifice of one's life to facilitate an act of terror. Most 20th-century terrorists took advantage of technological developments that allowed them to kill from afar. However, suicide terrorism has been on the increase in the past decade for a number of reasons. A suicide attacker can effectively commit large-scale damage without the need for expensive technologies. A single suicide terrorist can easily and cheaply place himself or herself deep inside enemy territory; the person's body delivers the payload directly to the source. Most important, the dramatic and, to most people, perverse nature of suicide terrorism is so extreme that the mere thought of a suicide attack is enough to instill fear in the general populace.

Terrorists have long understood that their lives were at risk: for example, the Russian anarchists and revolutionaries of the 19th century understood that their ...