Suicide attack

Suicide bombing is a form of terrorism, belonging to the tactics of asymmetric warfare, where a person willingly delivers and detonates an explosive charge in such a way that it results in their own death and (if it works) that of a number of their enemies. It can be either a military tactic, a political one, or a mixture of the two.

As a political tactic, suicide bombings send a message of impassioned opposition to enemy forces (that the bomber is willing to die for his cause) and a message of desperation to third parties (that the bomber feels the justice of the cause so strongly that he would rather die than submit). When used against civilian targets, suicide bombing often causes fear in the target population.

In common with other acts of asymmetric warfare, it is almost always a response by members of a group with little power to actions by a group with great power. Groups which have significant power have no need to resort to suicide bombing to achieve their aims: in consequence suicide bombing is overwhelmingly used by guerrilla and irregular fighting forces. Among many such groups, there are religious overtones: bombers and their supporters believe that their sacrifice will be rewarded in an afterlife. Suicide bombers often believe, rightly or wrongly, that their actions are justified because they are aimed at fighting a great injustice.

Neologism

Homicide bombing is a political neologism, initially appearing in late 2001 to early 2002, that was coined to de-emphasize the self-sacrificial connotations of suicide bombing and suggest a criminal connotation. This term is favored by the Bush administration and some news organizations such as the Fox News Channel.

Proponents of this phrase believe that homicide is a more appropriate label than suicide, because suicide by definition refers to killing oneself, but the act referred to by suicide bombing is actually intended to kill many other people.

Critics contend that the phrase is redundant because the bombing part of the phrase already conveys the homicidal nature of the action, whereas the adjective suicide is necessary to distinguish from bombing in which the bomber does not intend to be killed, because those willing to commit suicide are less susceptible to deterrence.

Martyrdom operation is a term coined in March 2003 by the Iraqi administration to refer to suicide attacks on invading troops during the 2003 Iraq war, and in particular their promise to retake the Baghdad airport.

History

The phenomenon first appeared in a large scale at the end of World War II with the Japanese kamikaze bombers. In these attacks, airplanes were outfitted with explosives that were set to detonate when the plane was flown into a target. Kamikaze strikes were a weapon of conventional (that is, not asymmetric) war used by the Empire of Japan chiefly against United States Navy aircraft carriers.

The Japanese also sent two-man midget submarines, essentially manned torpedoes, on suicide missions. After aiming the sub at their target, the two crew members were to embrace and shoot each other in the head.

Guerrilla groups that have employed suicide bombing include the Kurdistan Workers Party and the Tamil Tigers. Suicide bombing has been a particularly popular tactic amongst some Palestinian guerrilla groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Bombers affiliated with these groups often use so-called "suicide belts", explosive devices designed to be strapped to the body under clothing. The manufacture and shipping of these devices has been cited as a form of support for terrorism.

The September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack used large fully-fueled planes as enormous bombs flown into buildings, killing the planes' hijackers, and causing over 2,500 casualties in the process -- making it the most destructive suicide bombing in history.

Reactions

Suicide bombing usually brings a harsh reaction from enemy forces. As the suicide bomber himself (the bombers are almost always young men) can not be targetted, responses often target the community or organization he came from. In the West Bank the armed forces of Israel usually demolish homes which are claimed to be those of families whose children have volunteered for such missions.

It is sometimes claimed that suicide bombings, notably those of the Japanese kamikazes, the Palestinian bombers, and even the September 11, 2001 attacks, were military failures, and highly counter-productive to the perpetrators. In the case of the kamikazes, this is demonstrably untrue: although the kamikaze attacks could not stop the Allied advance, they inflicted more casualties and delayed the fall of Japan for much longer than was possible with the conventional methods available to the Empire. In the case of the September 11th attacks, the long-term effects remain to be seen, but in the short to medium term, the results were profound: since September 11th Western nations have diverted massive resources into unexpected areas and no citizen remains untouched.

The Palestinian sucicide bombings, however, are more difficult to assess. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the steady continuous deployment of suicide bombers in 2000 following the collapse of the Camp David II summit between the PLO and Israel, caused Israel to mobilize its army in order to seal off Gaza and re-occupy the West Bank, placing it under complete military rule, with village-streets patrolled by tanks. In addition, the Israelis began a campaign of targeted assassinations to kill militant Palestinian leaders, even using jets and helicopters for this purpose. Most significantly, the suicide missions having killed hundreds and maimed thousands of Israelis brought on a move to the political right and the rise of a hard-line government and policy headed by the militaristic general, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who has tightened the screws on the Palestinian community, making commerce, travel, schooling, and every-day life almost impossible for the Palestinians, hardly a positive result, with the average Palestinian suffering needlessly due to the derring-do exploits of the suicide bombers.