Suicide attack
[19] Academic Fred Halliday has written that assigning the descriptor of "terrorist" or "terrorism" to the actions of a group is a tactic used by states to deny "legitimacy" and "rights to protest and rebel".
Suicide terrorism itself has been defined by Ami Pedahzur, a professor of government, as "violent actions perpetrated by people who are aware that the odds they will return alive are close to zero".
[41][42][43][44][45] In the late 17th century, Qing official Yu Yonghe recorded that injured Dutch soldiers fighting against Koxinga's forces for control of Taiwan in 1661 would use gunpowder to blow up both themselves and their opponents rather than be taken prisoner.
[46] However, Yu may have confused such suicidal tactics with the standard Dutch military practice of undermining and blowing up overrun positions, which almost cost Koxinga his life during the Siege of Fort Zeelandia.
[58][59][60][61] During the revolt, the Japanese troops armed with mortars and machine guns were charged by sword wielding Acehnese under Teungku Abduldjalil (Tengku Abdul Djalil) in Buloh Gampong Teungah and Tjot Plieng on 10 and 13 November.
[106] Kamikaze, a ritual act of self-sacrifice carried out by Japanese pilots of explosive-laden aircraft against Allied warships, occurred on a large scale at the end of World War II.
[117] According to Egyptian media, an Arab Christian military officer from Syria, Jules Jammal, sunk a French ship with a suicide attack during the Suez Crisis in 1956.
[120] On 27 December 2018, the Green Bay Press-Gazette interviewed veteran [clarification needed] Mark Bentley, who had trained for the Special Atomic Demolition Munition program to manually place and detonate a modified version of the W54 nuclear bomb.
[145] In early 2000, one analyst (Yoram Schweitzer) saw a pause in bombing campaigns and argued that "most of the groups that were involved in suicide terrorism either stopped using it or eventually reduced it significantly.
[154][155] In 2004, due to increased effectiveness in Israel's security measures and stricter checkpoint protocols, terrorist organizations began employing women and children more frequently as operatives, assuming that they would raise fewer suspicions and undergo less rigorous inspections.
Unlike earlier airline hijackings, the primary focus was the planes, not the passengers because their long transcontinental flight plans meant they carried more fuel, allowing a bigger explosion on impact.
[164] In Europe four Islamist suicide bombers exploded home-made peroxide explosives on three London underground trains and a bus on 7 July 2005, during the morning rush hour.
According to author Jeffrey William Lewis, to succeed, campaigns of suicide bombing need: willing individuals, organizations to train and use them, and a society willing to accept such acts in the name of a greater good.
[173] A study of the remains of 110 suicide bombers in Afghanistan for the first part of 2007 by Afghan pathologist Dr. Yusef Yadgari found 80% were suffering from physical ailments such as missing limbs (before the blasts), cancer, or leprosy.
[182] Along with his research on the Tamil Tigers, Scott Atran found that Palestinian jihadist groups (such as Hamas) provide monthly stipends, lump-sum payments, and massive prestige to the families of suicide terrorists.
[186] Based on biographies of more than seven hundred foreign fighters uncovered at an Iraqi insurgent camp, researchers believe that the motivation for suicide missions (at least in Iraq) was not "the global jihadi ideology", but "an explosive mix of desperation, pride, anger, sense of powerlessness, local tradition of resistance and religious fervor".
[187] A study by German scholar Arata Takeda analyzes analogous behavior represented in literary texts from the antiquity through the 20th century (Ajax, Samson Agonistes, The Robbers, The Just Assassins) and comes to the conclusion "that suicide bombings are not the expressions of specific cultural peculiarities or exclusively religious fanaticisms.
[211][212] Updating his work in a 2010 book Cutting the Fuse, Pape reported that a fine-grained analysis of the time and location of attacks strongly support his conclusion that "foreign military occupation accounts for 98.5%—and the deployment of American combat forces for 92%—of all the 1,833 suicide terrorist attacks around the world" between 2004 and 2009[213] Pape wrote that "the success attributed to the surge in 2007 and 2008 was actually less the result of an increase in coalition forces and more to a change of strategy in Baghdad and the empowerment of the Sunnis in Anbar.
[217] Another tabulation found more than a fourfold 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.
[221][222][223][224] Those who cite religious factors as an important influence note that religion provides the framework because the bombers believe they are acting in the name of Islam and will be rewarded as martyrs.
[234] The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al Shaykh, issued a fatwa on September 12, 2013, that suicide bombings are "great crimes" and bombers are "criminals who rush themselves to hell by their actions".
...It is a duty for all Muslims to stand up against those who are killing people in the name of Islam.In January 2006, Ayatollah al-Udhma Yousof al-Sanei, a Shia Marja (high ranking cleric), decreed a fatwa against suicide bombing, declaring it a "terrorist act".
It is considered legally forbidden, constituting a reprehensible innovation in the Islamic tradition, morally an enormity of sin combining suicide and murder and theologically an act which has consequences of eternal damnation.
[247]According to theologian Charles Kimball, "There is only one verse in the Qur'an that contains a phrase related to suicide" (4:29):[248] "O you who have believed, do not consume one another's wealth unjustly but only [in lawful] business by mutual consent.
Mainstream Islamic groups such as the European Council for Fatwa and Research also cite the Quranic verse Al-An'am 6:151[250])] as prohibiting suicide: "And take not life, which Allah has made sacred, except by way of justice and law".
Bloom has suggested some salient reasons for women to turn to suicide bombings, such as "to avenge a personal loss, to redeem the family name, to escape a life of sheltered monotony and achieve fame, or to equalize the patriarchal societies in which they live.
Seeking friendship, they began hanging out after services at the Masjad al-Quds and other nearby mosques in Hamburg, in local restaurants and in the dormitory of the Technical University in the suburb of Harburg.
On February 4, 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.
[298] The suicide and other attacks on civilians had "a major impact" on the attitudes of the Israeli public/voters,[299] creating not demoralization, but even greater support for the right-wing Likud party, bringing to office another hardliner, former general, prime minister Ariel Sharon.
[301] Critics of the War on Terrorism suggest the results were negative, as the proceeding actions of the United States and other countries has increased the number of recruits, and their willingness to carry out suicide bombings.
