Suicide Bombing

A suicide bombing is a tactic in asymmetric conflicts, whereby an antagonist turns himself into an explosive device, via a suicide belt or vehicle, with the intent of killing himself and as many of the enemy as possible at the same time or nearly the same time without warning. Suicide bombings are rarely the work of lone agents; rather, they are implemented under the auspices of a sponsoring organization and are, typically, supported by a large network of handlers, cohorts, and publicists. They have occurred not only in Middle Eastern states and territories such as Israel, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Kurdistan, Iran, and Iraq but also in well over a dozen countries outside the region, where they are carried out by various organizations from the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka to the separatist groups of Chechnya and Sikh militants in India. Targets can be military, but they are most often civilian. Suicide bombings are now an institution and are increasingly employed as a standard component in unconventional warfare. Their symbolic import as antipolitical modes of expressing rage and grievance sometimes rivals their realpolitik value based on benefit-cost ratios or political efficiency.

The Japanese suicide attacker (kamikaze) and human torpedo (kaiten) of World War II seem to fit the definition of suicide bomber as employed in common parlance; however, unlike most present-day bombers, these agents were deployed by the official military organizations of nations. Many assassins from ancient times to the present can also be considered forerunners of the modern suicide bomber, particularly if the attacker dies or intends to die during the act or as a result of it. The assassin does not die by his own hand, however, and accordingly, the suicidal element is, technically speaking, absent. Despite some degree of historical precedence, suicide bombings are a contemporary phenomenon with global political, religious, and economic impact.

Given the simultaneity of suicide and homicide entailed in suicide bombings, the English term is inadequate, yet all attempts to replace it have failed. It is largely eschewed in the Islamic world, suicide being strictly forbidden in Islam. Muslims refer rather to acts of istishhad or shahada, “martyrdom,” the latter term signifying also the testimony [Page 1233]of faith, one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith. The shahid (plural shuhada), or martyr, is one who dies fi sabil Allah, “on the path of Allah,” while the term living martyr refers to one who has accepted the command of martyrdom but for the moment remains alive. Although Hezbollah carried out numerous suicide attacks beginning in 1982 and lasting until the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 1999, widespread usage of the term suicide bomber in Western media began with the 1983 attack on U.S. Marine and French barracks in Beirut. Claimed by the Islamic jihad but thought by many to have been supported by Hezbollah and Iran, the attack resulted in the deaths of 241 American service people and 58 French paratroopers. Most suicide attacks that followed in its wake took place within the Israeli-Palestinian domain and were initially carried out by Hamas, although they soon became a tactic favored also by Fatah militants.

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