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 makeshift bombs might explode in their hands, and many penned farewell notes to friends and loved ones. During World War II, Japanese pilots flew kamikaze missions against U.S. military assets in the [Page 351]Pacific. Although these attacks were aimed at military targets, and as such not acts of terrorism against civilians, they did demonstrate a willingness to use suicide as a weapon.

Suicide terrorism in the sense we think of it today dates to the early 1980s, when young Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon came under the control of Sheik Mohamed Fadlallah. His apocalyptic preaching attracted young followers who, like Fadlallah, believed that the enemies of Islam could be destroyed through martyrdom and suicide missions. In 1983, Hezbollah launched a devastating suicide bombing campaign against U.S. interests in the region. The first suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden van into the side of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing many people and injuring many more. Six months later, another suicide bomber attacked the U.S. embassy and U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, causing massive loss of life.

Shortly thereafter, suicide terrorism was employed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), better known as the Tamil Tigers. This terrorist group waging war against the government of Sri Lanka used suicide terrorists to kill Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993. A Tiger suicide bomber killed 100 people in an attack on a bank in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1996.

In 1994, the Islamic Resistance Movement, or better known by its Arabic acronym Hamas, which means “zeal,” began using suicide terrorism against Israel. At about the same time, the Al Qaeda network, under the leadership of Osama bin Laden, began planning to use suicide missions against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, as well as the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in 2000. Also in 2000, the second Palestinian uprising, or intifada, saw suicide attacks move to the forefront as the terrorist weapon of choice.

The most egregious act of suicide terrorism occurred on September 11, 2001, when 19 hijackers commandeered four planes, flying two into the World Trade Center in New York City and one into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. The fourth crashed in an open field in Pennsylvania after a struggle between passengers and terrorists. These suicide missions managed to take the lives of more than 3,000 individuals.