Suicide Terrorism

Suicide terrorism involves the intentional sacrifice of one's life in order to facilitate an act of terror. Until the late twentieth century, most terrorists took advantage of technological developments that allowed them to kill from afar. In contemporary times, however, suicide terrorism has been on the increase 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 him or herself deep inside enemy territory and deliver the payload directly to the target. Most importantly, 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 nineteenth 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 Pacific. Although these attacks where 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 Sheikh Mohammed 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, a terrorist group waging war against the government of Sri Lanka. Tamil Tigers are believed to have designed the suicide bomber jacket that is now a common feature of such attacks the world over. They 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, Hamas, which means “zeal” in Arabic, began using suicide terrorism against Israel. At about the same time, the al Qaeda network, under the leadership of Osama bin Laden, began planning suicide missions against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, as well as the USS 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 [Page 564]World Trade Center in New York and one into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed in an open field in Pennsylvania after a struggle between passengers and terrorists. These suicide missions managed to take the lives of 3,000 individuals.

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