"Whereas the threat of WMD
terrorism is little more than overheated rhetoric,
suicide bombing remains a devastating form of
terrorism whose complete demise is unlikely in the
21st century"
October 23, 1983, was one of the most
horrific days in the history of modern terrorism. Two
massive explosions destroyed the barracks of the U.S.
and French contingents of the multinational
peacekeeping force in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 241
American servicemen and 58 French paratroopers. Both
explosions were carried out by Muslim extremists who
drove to the heart of the target area and detonated
bombs with no intention of escaping. Subsequent suicide
attacks against Israeli and U.S. targets in Lebanon and
Kuwait made it clear that a new type of killing had
entered the repertoire of modern terrorism: a suicide
operation in which the success of the attack depends on
the death of the perpetrator.
This tactic stunned security experts. Two centuries of
experience suggested that terrorists, though ready to
risk their lives, wished to live after the terrorist
act in order to benefit from its accomplishments. But
this new terrorism defied that belief. It seemed
qualitatively different, appearing almost supernatural,
extremely lethal, and impossible to stop. Within six
months, French and U.S. Presidents François
Mitterrand and Ronald Reagan pulled their troops out of
Lebanon-a tacit admission that the new terrorism
rendered all known counterterrorist measures useless.
Government officials erected concrete barriers around
the White House and sealed the Pentagon's underground
bus tunnels. Nobody was reassured. As Time magazine
skeptically observed in 1983: "No security expert
thinks such defensive measures will stop a determined
Islamic terrorist who expects to join Allah by killing
some Americans."
Whereas the press lost no time in labeling these
bombers irrational zealots, terrorism specialists
offered a more nuanced appraisal, arguing that suicide
terrorism has inherent tactical advantages over
"conventional" terrorism: It is a simple and low-cost
operation (requiring no escape routes or complicated
rescue operations); it guarantees mass casualties and
extensive damage (since the suicide bomber can choose
the exact time, location, and circumstances of the
attack); there is no fear that interrogated terrorists
will surrender important information (because their
deaths are certain); and it has an immense impact on
the public and the media (due to the overwhelming sense
of helplessness). Dr. Ramadan Shalah, secretary-
general of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, summarized
the chilling logic of the new terror tactic: "Our enemy
possesses the most sophisticated weapons in the world
and its army is trained to a very high standard. . . .
We have nothing with which to repel killing and
thuggery against us except the weapon of martyrdom. It
is easy and costs us only our lives. . . human bombs
cannot be defeated, not even by nuclear bombs."
The prevalence of suicide terrorism during the last two
decades testifies to its gruesome effectiveness [see
table on opposite page]. It has formed a vital part of
several terror campaigns, including Hezbollah's
successful operation against the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon in the mid-1980s, the 1994-96 Hamas bus
bombings aimed at stopping the Israeli-Palestinian
peace process, and the 1995-99 Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK) struggle against Turkey. The formation of special
suicide units within the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) army in Sri Lanka has added an atrocious
dimension to the civil war on that devastated island.
In addition to killing hundreds of civilians, soldiers,
and high-ranking officers since 1987, LTTE suicide
terrorists have assassinated two heads of state: Prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India in 1991 and President
Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka in 1993. Sri Lanka's
current president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, recently lost
sight in one eye following an assassination attempt
that killed at least 24 people. The simultaneous 1998
bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,
which took the lives of nearly 300 civilians, were a
brutal reprise of the 1983 tragedies in Lebanon.
Almost 20 years after its stunning modern debut,
suicide terrorism continues to carry the image of the
"ultimate" terror weapon. But is this tactic as
unstoppable as it seems? The experiences of the last
two decades have yielded important insights into the
true nature of suicide bombers-insights that demystify
their motivations and strategies, expose their
vulnerabilities, and suggest ways to defeat what a
senior State Department official once called a
"frightening" problem to which there are "no answers."
Average, Everyday Martyrs
A long view of history reveals that
suicide terrorism existed many years before "truck
bombs" became part of the global vernacular. As early
as the 11th century, the Assassins, Muslim fighters
living in northern Persia, adopted suicide terrorism as
a strategy to advance the cause of Islam. In the 18th
century the Muslim communities of the Malabar Coast in
India, Atjeh in Sumatra, and Mindanao and Sulu in the
southern Philippines resorted to suicide attacks when
faced with European colonial repression. These
perpetrators never perceived their deaths as suicide.
Rather, they saw them as acts of martyrdom in the name
of the community and for the glory of God.
Moreover, suicide terrorism, both ancient and modern,
is not merely the product of religious fervor, Islamic
or otherwise. Martha Crenshaw, a leading terrorism
scholar at Wesleyan University, argues that the
mind-set of a suicide bomber is no different from those
of Tibetan self-immolators, Irish political prisoners
ready to die in a hunger strike, or dedicated
terrorists worldwide who wish to live after an
operation but know their chances of survival are
negligible. Seen in this light, suicide terrorism loses
its demonic uniqueness. It is merely one type of
martyrdom venerated by certain cultures or religious
traditions but rejected by others who favor different
modes of supreme sacrifice.
Acts of martyrdom vary not only by culture, but also by
specific circumstances. Tel Aviv University
psychologist Ariel Merari has conducted the most
comprehensive study of individuals who commit acts of
suicide terrorism. After profiling more than 50 Muslim
suicide bombers serving in Hezbollah, Amal, and secular
pro-Syrian organizations in Lebanon, as well as Hamas
and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Israel, he
concluded that there is no single psychological or
demographic profile of suicide terrorists. His findings
suggest that intense struggles produce several types of
people with the potential willingness to sacrifice
themselves for a cause [see sidebar on page 70].
Furthermore, Merari maintains that no organization can
create a person's basic readiness to die. The task of
recruiters is not to produce but rather to identify
this predisposition in candidates and reinforce it.
Recruiters will often exploit religious beliefs when
indoctrinating would-be bombers, using their subjects'
faith in a reward in paradise to strengthen and
solidify preexisting sacrificial motives. But other
powerful motives reinforce tendencies toward martyrdom,
including patriotism, hatred of the enemy, and a
profound sense of victimization.
Since suicide terrorism is an organizational
phenomenon, the struggle against it cannot be conducted
on an individual level. Although profiling suicide
bombers may be a fascinating academic challenge, it is
less relevant in the real-world struggle against them
than understanding the modus operandi and mind-set of
terrorist leaders who would never consider killing
themselves, but opt for suicide terrorism as a result
of cold reasoning.
The Care and Feeding of a Suicide Bomber
A suicide terrorist is almost always
the last link in a long organizational chain that
involves numerous actors. Once the decision to launch a
suicide attack has been made, its implementation
requires at least six separate operations: target
selection, intelligence gathering, recruitment,
physical and "spiritual" training, preparation of
explosives, and transportation of the suicide bombers
to the target area. Such a mission often involves
dozens of terrorists and accomplices who have no
intention of committing suicide, but without whom no
suicide operation could take place.
A careful survey of all the organizations that have
resorted to suicide terrorism since 1983 suggests that
the most meaningful distinction among them involves the
degree to which suicide bombing is institutionalized.
At the simplest level are groups that neither practice
suicide terrorism on a regular basis nor approve of its
use as a tactic. Local members or affiliates of such
organizations, however, may initiate it on their own
for a variety of reasons, such as imitating the
glorious acts of others, responding to a perception of
enormous humiliation and distress, avenging the murder
of comrades and relatives, or being presented with a
special opportunity to strike.
Within such a context, it is important to take into
account what might be called "pre-suicide terrorism."
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad suicide operations
in Israel during the 1990s were preceded by a wave of
knifings in the late 1980s. These attackers never
planned an escape route and were often killed on the
spot. The knifings did not involve any known
organization and were mostly spontaneous. But they
expressed a collective mood among young Palestinians of
jihad (holy war) against Israel that helped create an
atmosphere for the institutionalized suicide terrorism
of the next decade.
Many terrorist groups are skeptical of suicide
terrorism's strategic value but resort to this tactic
in exceptional circumstances. Within this category are
the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania (allegedly executed by Osama bin Laden's Qaida
organization) and similar irregular attacks conducted
over the years by the Egyptian Islamic Group, the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Kuwaiti Dawa, and the
Algerian Armed Islamic Group, among others. Such
suicide bombings, though carefully planned, are
irregular and unsystematic.
At another level are groups that formally adopt suicide
terrorism as a temporary strategy. The leaders of these
movements obtain (or grant) ideological or theological
legitimization for its use, recruit and train
volunteers, and then send them into action with a
specific objective in mind. The most spectacular
operations of Hezbollah between 1983 and 1985, of Hamas
between 1994 and 1996, and of the PKK between 1995 and
1999 fall within this category. More recently, Chechen
rebels suddenly launched a campaign of suicide bombings
following nine months of inconclusive fighting against
the Russian military; one of the first bombers, a
cousin of noted rebel leader Arbi Barayev, had
reportedly declared: "I am going willingly to my death
in the name of Allah and the freedom of the Chechen
people."
In such cases, the institutionalization of suicide
terrorism has been temporary and conditional. Leaders
who opt for this type of terrorism are usually moved by
an intense sense of crisis, a conviction in the
effectiveness of this new tactic, endorsement by the
religious or ideological establishment, and the
enthusiastic support of their community. At the same
time, they are fully aware of the changeable nature of
these conditions and of the potential costs associated
with suicide terrorism (such as devastating military
retaliation). They consequently have little difficulty
in suspending suicide bombing or calling it off
entirely.
A case in point is Hezbollah's decision to begin
suicide bombings in 1983. It is known today that
several leaders of the organization were extremely
uneasy about the practice. Insisting that Islam does
not approve of believers taking their own lives,
clerics such as Sheikh Fadlallah raised legal
objections and were unwilling to allow the use of this
new tactic. However, suicide terrorism became so
effective in driving foreigners out of Lebanon that
there was no motivation to stop it. The result was
theological hair splitting that characterized suicide
bombers as exceptional soldiers who risked their lives
in a holy war. But following the Israeli withdrawal
from Lebanon in 1985 and the decreasing effectiveness
of this tactic, Hezbollah's clerics ordered the end of
systematic suicide bombing. The organization's fighters
were instructed to protect their lives and continue the
struggle against the Zionists through conventional
guerrilla methods. Only rarely, and on an irregular
basis, has Hezbollah allowed suicide bombing since.
It is not exactly clear when the commanders of Hamas
decided to turn their anti-Israel suicide attacks into
a strategic struggle against the peace process. Their
campaign, started haphazardly in 1992 against Israeli
military and settler targets in the occupied
territories, failed to produce glaring results. The
1994 Hebron Massacre, when Israeli doctor Baruch
Goldstein murdered 29 praying Palestinians, changed
everything. Determined to avenge the deaths of their
countrymen, Hamas operators resorted to suicide bus
bombings inside Israeli cities. In a matter of weeks,
the new wave of terrorism had eroded Israel's
collective confidence in the peace process and had
played right into the hands of extremist Hamas clerics
who opposed negotiations with Israel. Yet, in 1995
these attacks suddenly came to a complete halt. Several
factors convinced Hamas leaders to back off: the
growing Palestinian resentment against the costs of the
bus bombings (expressed in massive Israeli economic
sanctions), the increasing cooperation between Israeli
and Palestinian security services, and the
effectiveness of Israeli counterterrorism.
Ironically, Israel unintentionally pushed the
organization to resume the bus bombings when, in 1996,
then Prime Minister Shimon Peres ordered the
assassination of Yehiya Ayash (known as "the Engineer")
-a Hamas operative who masterminded many of the
previous suicide bombings. Humiliated and angered,
Hamas temporarily resumed bus bombings in Israel. A
series of three successful attacks by Hamas and one by
the Palestinian Islamic Jihad changed Israel's
political mood about the peace process and led to the
1996 electoral defeat of Peres and his pro-peace
government.
In the cases of Hezbollah and Hamas, no permanent
suicide units were formed, and bombers were recruited
and trained on an ad hoc, conditional basis. But, in
rare instances, some organizations adopt suicide
terrorism as a legitimate and permanent strategy,
harkening back to the Japanese kamikaze pilots of the
Second World War.
Currently, the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers are the only
example of this phenomenon. The "Black Tigers" launched
their first attack in July 1987, and since then suicide
bombings have become an enduring feature of the LTTE's
ruthless struggle. During the last 13 years, 171
attacks have killed hundreds of civilians and soldiers
and wounded thousands more. The assassinations of two
heads of state, political leaders, and high-ranking
military officers have made it clear that no politician
or public figure is immune to these attacks.
The Black Tigers constitute the most significant proof
that suicide terrorism is not merely a religious
phenomenon and that under certain extreme political and
psychological circumstances secular volunteers are
fully capable of martyrdom. The Tamil suicide bombers
are not the product of a religious cult, but rather a
cult of personality: Velupillai Pirabaharan, the brutal
and charismatic LTTE leader who initiated the practice,
appears to have been greatly influenced by the
spectacular successes of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Fiercely
determined to fight the repressive Sinhalese government
until the Tamils achieve independence, Pirabaharan
created the suicide units largely by the strength of
his personality and his unlimited control of the
organization.
The formation of the Black Tigers was greatly
facilitated by an early practice of the organization's
members: Since the early 1980s, all LTTE fighters-male
and female alike-have been required to carry potassium
cyanide capsules. A standard LTTE order makes it
unequivocally clear that soldiers are to consume the
capsule's contents if capture is imminent. The LTTE
suicide units are essentially an extension of the
organization's general culture of supreme martyrdom;
the passage from ordinary combat soldier to suicide
bomber is a short and tragic journey.
Making Suicide Terrorists Pay
The perceived strength of suicide
bombers is that they are lone, irrational fanatics who
cannot be deterred. The actual weakness of suicide
bombers is that they are nothing more than the
instruments of terrorist leaders who expect their
organizations to gain tangible benefits from this
shocking tactic. The key to countering suicide bombers,
therefore, is to make terrorist organizations aware
that this decision will incur painful costs. While no
simple formula for countering suicide terrorism exists,
the experiences of the last two decades suggest two
complementary political and operational strategies.
Organizations only implement suicide terrorism
systematically if their community (and, in some cases,
a foreign client state) approves of its use. Thus,
political and economic sanctions against the
terrorists' community, combined with effective coercive
diplomacy against their foreign patrons, may help
reduce or end suicide terrorism. The problem with
political counterterrorism, however, is that it takes a
long time to implement and the results are never
certain. The Taliban in Afghanistan, for instance,
continue to host Osama bin Laden (who was indicted by
the United States in November 1998 for the bombings of
the two U.S. embassies in East Africa) despite
international sanctions, a unanimously adopted United
Nations Security Council Resolution demanding that he
stand trial, and a threat from the United States that
the Taliban will be held responsible for any terrorist
acts undertaken while Bin Laden is under their
protection.
The leaders of organizations that resort to suicide
terrorism are evidently ready to take great risks.
Consequently, the political battle against suicide
bombers must always be enhanced by an aggressive
operational campaign. Governments do not have to invent
entirely new tactics when waging a war against suicide
terrorists. Instead, they must adapt and intensify
existing counterterrorism strategies to exploit the
vulnerabilities of suicide bombers.
The Achilles' heel of suicide terrorists is that they
are part of a large, operational infrastructure. It may
not be possible to profile and apprehend would-be
suicide bombers, but once it has been established that
an organization has resolved to use suicide terrorism,
security services can strike against the commanders and
field officers who recruit and train the assailants and
then plan the attacks. This counterterrorism effort
calls for the formation of effective networks of
informers, the constant monitoring of potential
collaborators, and close cooperation among
international intelligence services. Counterterrorist
operatives must apply consistent pressure on the
terrorist infrastructure through harassment and
attacks. They must also seek ways to cut off the
terrorists' sources of funding by depriving
organizations of their financial resources (such as
international bank accounts or "front" businesses).
Regardless of the presence or absence of hard evidence
for planned operations, it is essential to put
potential terrorists on the run.
The physical protection of potential target areas is
another essential tactic. The idea of erecting concrete
barriers against a martyr driving a truck loaded with
tons of explosives might strike some as ludicrously
inadequate. But such physical protection serves two
essential objectives: It reduces the effect of the
suicide bombing if and when the terrorist hits the
target area, and it serves as a deterrent against
potential suicide strikes. For the terrorist field
officers, who may never know when they will be caught
or killed, each suicide squad is precious. When faced
with highly protected areas, they are unlikely to send
squads into action. Roadblocks, guards at special
checkpoints, inspection teams in public places, and the
use of dogs and artificial sniffing devices may drive
suicide terrorism down significantly.
Such security measures also reassure the public.
Governments must never forget that terrorism
constitutes a form of psychological warfare, and that
suicide terrorism is the ultimate expression of this
struggle. Terrorism must always be fought
psychologically-a battle that often takes place in the
minds of ordinary people. Even if governments do not
have an immediate operational solution to suicide
terrorism, they must convince their citizens that they
are not sitting ducks and that the authorities are
doing everything they can to protect them. Ordinary
people should, in fact, be informed that psychological
warfare is being waged against them. Free people who
are told that they are being subjected to psychological
manipulation are likely to develop strong terrorism
antibodies.
In fighting suicide bombers, it is important not to
succumb to the idea that they are ready to do anything
and lose everything. This is the same sort of
simplistic reasoning that has fueled the widespread
hysteria over terrorists acquiring weapons of mass
destruction (WMD). The perception that terrorists are
undeterrable fanatics who are willing to kill millions
indiscriminately just to sow fear and chaos belies the
reality that they are cold, rational killers who employ
violence to achieve specific political objectives.
Whereas the threat of WMD terrorism is little more than
overheated rhetoric, suicide bombing remains a
devastating form of terrorism whose complete demise is
unlikely in the 21st century. The ongoing political
instability in the Middle East, Russia, and South
Asia-including Iran, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and
possibly India and Pakistan-suggests that these regions
will continue to be high-risk areas, with irregular
suicide bombings occasionally extending to other parts
of the globe. But the present understanding of the high
costs of suicide terrorism and the growing cooperation
among intelligence services worldwide gives credence to
the hope that in the future only desperate
organizations of losers will try to use this tactic on
a systematic basis.
