In July 2001, the Tamil Tigers celebrated the 18th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s civil war by bombing the country’s only international airport at Kataunayaka. In September 2001 Al-Qaeda operatives brought violence to American shores with devastating attacks in New York and Washington. In Iraq in 2009, a suicide bomber killed Shia pilgrims on a bridge outside Baghdad and a series of bombings tore apart the centre of the city, just one more in a wave of suicide bombings that has spiraled across the country in recent years. Continents apart, these three events shared a deadly commonality. All were carried out by suicide bombers using the simplest of weapons, working almost invisibly in areas where there are high levels of security and surveillance. The sophisticated organization of the attacks blurred the fact that neither the weapons nor the skills required were highly technical. The image of the suicidal bomber as a lone fanatic, on the fringes of society, has been forever shattered.
The global focus on Al-Qaeda since 11 September may give the impression that suicide bombers represent a new form of terrorism. Events in the West Bank and Israel may contribute to the belief that suicide bombers are endemic to Islam. Both of these impressions are inaccurate. Suicide terrorism has a long and gruesome history that spans the globe. From 11th century Persia to 21st century Chechnya, suicide bombers have played a role in the perpetuation of terrorism. Since the 1970s, the image of the masked hijacker has dominated the iconography of terrorism; now the terrorist in popular imagination takes the form of a suicide bomber. Recent violence in the Middle East and emerging from diaspora communities within the EU reinforces the pivotal role the tactical use of suicide bombers has to invigorate terrorism and its global influence.
Suicide bombers are a complex amalgam of individual motivations, strategic planning, historical precedent and sophisticated understandings of terrorism “spectaculars”. There are four dimensions to the use of suicide bombings – tactics, mindsets, inductions and frameworks.
Tactics
As a tactic of terrorism, the suicide bomb or human bomb is a complex but innovative weapon. The elements that shape how it is used include psychological expertise, tactical and operational planning, and a nuanced understanding of the political and emotional aspects of terrorism. Tactically, suicide bombings have several obvious advantages. They are effective, cost-efficient and lethal. The suicide bomber usually cannot be captured and interrogated; hence the possibilities for betrayal are almost non-existent. A successful attack has a mobilizing impact on a wider audience, and many suicide bombers are revered as martyrs in their communities. At the same time, suicide bombing causes confusion, horror and a feeling of hopelessness for those communities who are on the receiving end. It seems to be violence without purpose, goal or intention other than to cause maximum chaos and fear.
Suicide bombing fulfills the classic criteria set out by practitioners since at least the 1960s. Firstly, it is random and undermines the collective sense of security; it takes away categories of innocence, victim hood and guilt that are often associated with violence. Secondly, it provokes excessive, unyielding reactions from state or national security forces. It applies time pressures and emotional leverage to state authorities. Resources, political focus and energy are targeted at finding the perpetrators or pre-empting further attacks. Thirdly, it functions as a vehicle for a message whose audience is wider than that of the victim and perpetrator. It is the trinity of victim, perpetrator and audience that holds the key to understanding suicide bombings and the role they play in twenty-first century terrorism. It is this triangular relationship that underlies the tactical use of suicide bombing, either as a one-off random attack or as part of a larger, more complex strategy.
There have been notable successes in the use of suicide bombings. In 1983, suicide bombers forced America to withdraw from Lebanon and have influenced American policy in that region ever since. Hezbollah’s campaign against the Israelis in Lebanon included spectacular suicide bombings. The PKK has utilized this tactic in Turkey, especially since the arrest of Ocelam. The LTTE have assassinated political leaders such as Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India in 1991 and President Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka in 1993, as well as hundreds of soldiers, officials and civilians. Hamas effectively derailed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process throughout the 1990s through the targeted, relentless use of suicide bombings.
Collectively, these examples reveal a sophisticated organizational use of suicide bombings. Every attack requires a series of operations, from intelligence gathering to transport of the bomber and his equipment. Dozens of operatives who would never consider committing suicide themselves are crucial to the success of the attack and form a supportive infrastructure around the terrorist as he prepares for the mission. As the 1998 Nairobi and Dar Es-Salaam embassy attacks reveal, the level of organization is highly professional and context adaptive.
Since the 1983 attack on US Marines in Beirut, suicide bombings have grown steadily as a tactic. Deaths from suicide bombers are in excess of 21,350 since 1983. Many Lebanese and Palestinian groups experimented with the technique in the 1980s. Kashmiri separatists and Punjabi terrorists have also intermittently used suicide bombing as a tactic although car bombs and assassinations remain the preferred techniques in those regions. Pro-Islamic supporters have used suicide bombs against security services and police stations in Croatia and Bosnia. Tanzim Quodital Jihad, or the Al-Qaeda of the Malay Archipelago is widely believed to be behind suicide bombings in Bali in 2005. Jemaat-al- Islamiya frequently conducts suicide operations in Indonesia. Suicide bombers carried out 658 attacks around the world last year, including 542 in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is double the number in previous years.
In 2001, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, lead strategist for Al-Qaeda noted that the movement’s followers “need to concentrate on the method of martyrdom operations as the most successful way of inflicting damage against the opponent and the least costly to the muhajadeen in terms of casualties. “ He reiterated this approach in his most recent cyber-based on-line conversation with young recruits in December 2007. Al-Zawahiri frequently holds the equivalent of virtual town meetings using known Al-Qaeda websites. These websites publish details of suicide attacks as they occur, accompanied by prayers, congratulations and honours for the attackers.
Mindsets
Suicide bombers can be subdivided into three groups. The first comprises individuals who are willing to sacrifice themselves. These may plan their attacks in isolation but much more commonly they are identified and nurtured by groups who use suicide bombing more strategically. Suicide bombers as individuals often become heroes and martyrs within their own communities, depicted as sanctified beings or national figures. Kamikaze pilots referred to themselves as the “petals that fall before the cherry blossoms” whilst Palestinian suicide bombers are revered as soldiers of the Intifada or rebels resisting foreign occupation. The second group use suicide bombings as a temporary tactic and are adept at nurturing potential attackers and isolating them from their normal environments. The third group develop complex strategic plans based around suicide bombing as a military tactic and have dedicated suicide units which train for specific missions.
Individuals
There have been studies since the 1970s that focus on the psychology of individual terrorists. One of the best known psychiatrists analysing terrorism is Jerrold Post, whose observance that terrorists are isolated, dysfunctional individuals from poor or marginalized communities, often with troubled family backgrounds (particularly absent fathers) and with the symptomatology of mental illnesses like paranoia or schizophrenia is echoed throughout the terrorism narrative. A body of literature has sprung up outlining the contours of terrorism’s mental landscape, with the emphasis on inverted thought patterns, mental aberrations or, at best, a skewed understanding of morality and acceptable behaviour. The classic study of Italian terrorism by Ferracuti and Bruno even distinguished between right wing and left wing terrorists by noting, “in the right wing terrorism the individual terrorists are frequently psychopathological and the ideology is empty; in left wing terrorism ideology is outside of reality and the terrorists are more normal and fanatical”.
However, events show that people with no history of violence can often carry out horrifying terrorist attacks whilst more generally violent people hover around the edges of groups without ever being utilized for terrorism. Arial Merari, Israel’s best known specialist in the psychology of terrorists, notes that it is susceptibility to indoctrination that is the dominant feature of people who have carried out suicide attacks. Certain social groupings are susceptible to engaging in violence and more likely to dehumanize other groups of people. Young, unattached males with little social ease or confidence are the social grouping most susceptible to violent behavior or induction into violent organizations in all societies. These may take the form of terrorist groups, gangs, paramilitaries or other entities organized around the production of violence. They will form strong group identities and bonding rituals that involve categorizing themselves as the elite and others as undesirables or lacking in some way. They will often form intense inner-group relationships that preclude them from forming similar relationships outside the group. They may come to characterise non-group members as sub-human, natural victims or deserving of violence. Over time, the dynamics of the group will become the dominant theme in their lives and all other aspects of daily life will be measured against that theme.
In conjunction with susceptibility to indoctrination, the second dominant characteristic of terrorists, including suicide bombers, is a willingness to submit to moral disengagements. Mechanisms of moral disengagement include moral justification for action, exonerating circumstances, blame attribution, euphemistic labelling, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, disregard or distortion of consequences and dehumanization of other people or groups. Collectively, these mechanics shift responsibility, consequences and empathy away from the target of a terrorist attack and make it more likely that the perpetrator can resolve any residual moral qualms about violence by holding the victim responsible for attracting violence. Many societies have groups of people who are trained to disengage moral restraints against killing. They tend to be venerated, rewarded with medals and glory and idealized as heroic figures. For suicide bombers, the belief that their actions are a duty or part of a higher purpose facilitates the same function of moral disengagement. When this occurs in societies already engaged in a similar process, for example in the midst of war or undergoing violent change, it has a snowball effect on individuals.
Merari’s study underlines the fact that groups do not create suicide bombers but identify and nurture those individuals who already have that disposition. Hamas has previously confirmed that it targets people who show a keen interest in Islam and have no criminal record that would attract the attention of police or intelligence services. The recruitment of “lily whites”, as unknown operatives are termed by the IRA, is a well-known tactic and almost impossible to counter. These potential operatives are often true believers, searching for meaning or leadership, needing the certainty of moral absolutes and clearly defined categories of people.
Despite this, it is often difficult to pinpoint emerging terrorists. Palestinian suicide bombers are young, poorly educated, from deprived backgrounds with few prospects, and usually the son, sibling or relative of other bombers or men who have been humiliated by Israeli security forces. Humiliation in patriarchal societies revolves around the preservation of self before male members of the society. Violence against women, particularly sexual violence, is viewed as an assault on a male‘ s possession rather than an attack on the integrity of the woman and is generally less likely to engender high levels of retaliatory violence against the attacker. However, Pakistani or Egyptian terrorists tend to be well-educated, older, often from prosperous families or have good career prospects. South American terrorists are often educated to post-doctorate level, often members of well-off elitist sectors of the society and likely to be surrounded by the better things that life offers. Poverty, despair and political grievance alone are not enough to induce people to commit acts of terrorism. There must also be a narrative that explains the violence, endows it with meaning and higher purpose and facilitates the twin processes of moral disengagement and induction into a wider, supportive group structure.
Tactical Suicide Bombing
The second type is groups who use suicide bombing as a temporary tactic targeted at achieving specific goals. This group endows violence with meaning, purpose and goals. Included in this category are Hamas whose policies of suicide bus bombings followed the 1994 Hebron massacre and the 1996 assassination of Hamas mastermind Yehiya Ayash, Hezbollah in Lebanon between 1983 and 1985, and the Chechen rebels who utilized suicide bombers between 1994 and 1996 after months of unsuccessful encounters with Russian troops. All of these groups use suicide bombings on an ad-hoc basis, and will abandon the practice if it is no longer effective. Groups who decide to use this tactic for limited periods are usually motivated by an acute sense of crisis tempered by a pragmatic awareness of the changeable nature of political conditions. They are usually supported by their communities and religious or ideological authorities.
Varmik Volkan, drawing on decades of studies, has identified a discernible pattern in the way that identities of individuals are captured and subjugated to larger group identities. In the case of suicide bombers, there are patterns in the way that individuals with receptive elements in their character – tendency to think in moral absolutes, sense of trauma or fractured identity, search for meaning or leadership – are targeted and led along by groups that use suicide bombing as a tactic. Certain conditions may make individual acts of suicide terrorism more likely. These include intense feelings of frustration or grievance, revenge for the death of family or comrades, a desire to emulate heroic examples, or simply an unexpected opportunity to inflict catastrophic damage on the enemy.
Strategic Suicide Bombing
The third, and much rarer, group uses suicide bombings as part of long term planning via dedicated suicide units. The Tamil Tigers are the best-known example, although they are not the only ones. The Black Tigers, as the dedicated units are known, are the elite fighters of the movement. They live and train separately from other activists. Since the 1980s, the Tamil Tigers have carried cyanide capsules and are under orders to commit suicide if capture is imminent. The Black Tigers, including the Black Sea Tigers, have refined this quality under the leadership of Velupillai Prabbakaran whose charismatic personality and single-minded opposition to the Sinhalese government inspires fanatical devotion. The Black Tigers have also contributed to the technology of suicide bombings. They pioneered the use of suicide suits, deadly combinations of explosives strapped tightly to the body and detonated with a single pull on the cord. These crush the torso while leaving the head, arms and legs relatively intact to be identified by police or security services. The Black Tigers are also responsible for two other developments. The first is the growing use of female suicide bombers, the Black Tigresses, although this has now been adopted in other places such as Iraq and Russia. The first suicide attack by the Tamil Tigers was carried out by a woman in 1987. Almost 30% of the Black Tigers are women whose ability to carry out attacks is enhanced by cultural and social practices that prohibit body searches or security checks by male personnel. The second contribution made by the Black Tigers is a technical one. The “bikini bomb” is a tiny container of dynamite which is carried by women close to the pelvic cavity and can be hidden from cursory searches.
Inductions
There are rituals which surround suicide bombers in the Middle East. The bomber may know nothing of his mission until days or hours before it occurs. When the decision is made, the bomber is taken to a graveyard and made to lie between the gravestones for several hours. He may be draped in burial shrouds. Later he is taken to a safe house where he records his last messages, to family or friends, and his picture is taken for later use as an icon. The blessings by clerics endow his mission with special purpose and ensure his passage to heaven. From this moment on, the suicide bomber is considered by everyone, including himself, to be already dead. His physical presence is merely a transitory vehicle soon to be discarded. The notion of Shadeed or Living Martyrs is contested amongst Islamic scholars but in the community of the suicide bomber there is no doubt that he is holy and separate from others. The calmness and intent that witnesses have observed in suicide bombers arises from these rituals of passage. In many instances, as a secondary measure, operatives will accompany the suicide bomber on his last ride to the target. There have been reports of car door handles rigged with explosives to trap the bomber inside but these are not usually necessary. Survivors of suicide bombings in Israel report seeing the bomber smile he denotes the bomb. This smile – the smile of joy or ‘basaamat-al-farah” is prompted by his impending martyrdom.
At the same time, potential suicide bombers may undergo the equivalent of a wedding party or even a marital blessing. This ensures they will be received by celestial beings, the oft-touted seventy-two virgins of Paradise, as the returning beloved. The wedding blessings are highly controversial and not always administered.
The induction process that separates a potential suicide bomber from his normal environment involves a subtle blend of creating alternative realities and reinforcing inherent fractures in the individual’s personality. Volkan has identified the way in which larger group identities are pushed down in the ‘cracks’ of individual fractured personalities. Potential suicide bombers are nurtured in the belief that they are part of a larger, more meaningful whole whose overall purpose has mystical, religious or revolutionary overtones. The ‘education’ of a suicide bomber is usually carried out within a small circle. However, in areas where there are multiple instances of suicide bombing or endemic political violence, the education period is shorter, less intense and less organized.
In documents left behind by Mohammad Atta, one of the suicide bombers in New York in 2001, it is possible to trace one of the more subtle methods of education, namely the blending of sacred and secular language to create alternative realities. He writes in his last instructions that his fellow suicide bombers should “be happy, for you are heading for a deed that God loves and will accept. It will be the day, God willing, that you spend with the women of paradise”. His final will contains detailed instructions for the preparation of his body for burial, funeral plans and details who may and may not attend his funeral. He makes no mention of any relatives or loved ones, but exhorts whoever divides his possessions to be a devout Muslim who will be “held responsible”. The language is a mix of sacred and secular, practical instructions woven within prayers, repeated chants and proclamations and final responsibility for his passage to Paradise to be in the hands of “someone I have followed in prayer”.
This pattern of blended language reappears again and again in the documents or testimonies of other suicide bombers. Practical instructions designed to prevent forensic evidence, for example, are intermingled with ritualized practices based on ablution and purification that must occur before prayers or entry to Paradise. The operational preparations for a suicide bombing are given a sacredness and meaning that lifts them beyond the secular. Suicide bombings may be termed missions or operations, but more often they are described by the bomber and his community as journeys or the beginnings of ascension to Paradise.
This transitional practice is not unique to Islamic terrorists. In Northern Ireland, the IRA bombers cleanse carefully to avoid leaving forensic traces but there is a lexicon of language and ritualized behaviour around the safe-houses and the disposal of weapons that reappears consistently in their retelling of events. This set of behaviours change the paramilitary figure on operations into a man again and facilitates his re-entry into the normal life of his community, separating one reality from another. Suicide bombers in Pakistan exhibit similar ritualized behavior prior to undertaking martyrdom missions.
Frameworks
When the world is perceived as peaceful, violent acts like terrorism appear as aberrations. If the world is seen as at war, a place of injustice and domination, violence is regarded as legitimate, even honorable. Terrorist attacks become defensive or pre-emptive tactics, symbolic maneuvers in an on-going battle. The language around a suicide bombing has sacred and martial connotations and it is often referred to as a mission. Concepts like self sacrifice, martyrdom and salvation enter the lexicon. This is true regardless of whether the explanations for a suicide bombing are religious, nationalist, separatist, or draw from other ideological frameworks.
Islamic fundamentalism is often cited as the cause of a new wave of suicide bombings. Islamic fundamentalism is the narrative that is the most visible and draws the most attention but it is one of many. The meaning of Jihad is bitterly contested by sectors of the Islamic community. In many interpretations, “Jihad” prohibits violence and in others, violence is inextricably intertwined with the precepts of Holy War. The process of radicalization that draws young men and women into terrorism utilizes specific, often disputed interpretations of Jihad to reinforce the message that suicide bombing is an act of martyrdom with heavenly rewards. For many, this radicalization occurs in mosques or religious schools; for others, in the home or community, in the informal networks and shared experiences of growing up on the edges of isolated or alienated communities.
Groups that target potential suicide bombers are careful to constantly reinforce the belief that suicide bombing is an act of religious duty through the use of religious texts, exemplars, the veneration of heroic role models who have carried out acts of suicide bombing, and frequent learning and bonding experiences that separate potential bombers from the wider world. For Islamic groups not native to the Middle East, the Arabic of the Quran is classical, heavy with meaning and endowed with a sacred quality. Students trained in the madrassi and jumah of Pakistan and Afghanistan are not always native Arabic speakers. For them, Quranic Arabic has a mystical presence in their daily lives. It is enough to pass edicts in Quranic Arabic that support the ideology of suicide bombing.
For native Arabic speakers, the text of the Quran is ancient and revered but texts to reinforce the messages of martyrdom and suicide bombings must be more carefully chosen. Militant interpretations of Islam and Jihad or Holy War occur when religion becomes fused with political, ideological and strategic circumstances. The power of belief to mobilize people is something that has been lost to the secularism and consumerism of the West but it remains resonant in other parts of the world.
Across the globe, forms of nationalism and separatism, secessionist ideologies and trans-border political agendas all either attract potential suicide bombers or find ways to use them for strategic advantages. There are a multitude of explanations for suicide bombings. Some see it as the new face of militant Islam, others as a manifestation of resistance to Western hegemony. Some explanations have more validity than others, but all share one central characteristic; the need to make sense of what seems senseless and random. At the same time, people involved in terrorism undergo a similar process of searching for explanations as to why the world seems to be based on asymmetries of power or justice. The paradigm at the heart of suicide bombing is that control of violence, for example by the state, creates an order. At the same time, counter violence by sub-state groups transforms this order by dismantling the falsehoods at the centre of state control and re-introducing a true or natural order based on justice and fairness. Sheikh Hussein Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbellah, originated the ‘spider web theory’ in recent years to centre this concept in regional politics. According to the spider web theory, Israeli and Western defence and intelligence structures may seem resilient but they are like spiders’ web and will tear apart if penetrated.
Emerging Trends
In the last decade there has been an increased incidence in ethno-religious and nationalist-separatist terrorism that has an aura of militant Islamic fundamentalism behind it. Three discernible trends are visible in this increase. These are the influence of Iranian and Sudanese policies of Jihad, the legacy of the Afghan and Iraq war, and finally the fallout from the troubled Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Sudan and Iran have both adopted a militant, millenarian vision that sees violence as a legitimate tool of policy with measurable strategic outcomes. The global resonance of 11 September has reinforced the idea that suicide bombing is an effective and powerful tactic and can be used to affect international politics.
The second trend, the end of Afghanistan’s war with the former Soviet Union hundreds, if not thousands, of devoted Islamic warriors emerged. For many of these fighters, the transition back to civilian life has been difficult. Many returned to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan; others have joined militant movements at home. Since the Taliban have taken over Afghanistan, internal power struggles inside the assorted jihadi movements and groups has also contributed to a more widespread use of suicide bombings in local or regional power struggles. The proliferation of these, as well as the legends that surround their willingness to die, has made them heroes to an entire generation of young people across the Islamic world. Bin Laden declared war on the West almost two decades ago. There has been no shortage of willing volunteers who have traveled to Al-Qaeda training camps. Volunteers will endure any hardship; suffer any form of loneliness or loss, on their journey towards these camps. There is little, if any, active recruiting for volunteers and often, camps are over-stretched, unsanitary and difficult to access. The journey from the West or South East Asia through the conduit points into Al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, and Islamic State is perilous, full of obstacles, expensive and uncertain. Thousands of young men make their way to the camps every year and slip into the networks and webs that surround the Al-Qaeda leadership. In recent years, the number of women entering into these networks has also increased although, at present, they rarely take part in suicide bombings.
The third trend has been an enduring part of the terrorism narrative since the 1970s. The brutality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for both sides, has seen scores of radicalized young people joining extreme groups. The spate of suicide bombings that frequently sweeps the region is usually separatist or resistant in nature, rather than religious. Many of the perpetrators are young, poor and badly educated. Many are the siblings or children either of previous suicide bombers or of men who have been humiliated by Israeli defense forces. There have also been a growing number of Palestinian women carrying out suicide attacks in the last five years. As with the Palestinian hijackers of the 1970s, suicide bombing functions as an important form of leverage in Israeli-Palestinians political relations. The enduring emotional resonance of the Palestinian cause across the Middle East has been overshadowed by the Al-Qaeda narrative in recent years but it remains deeply embedded in the region’s understanding of political violence. It has not lost its ability to serve as a flashpoint for violence at the point where legitimacy and authority are contested. In a 2007 message Osama Bin Laden described Palestine as “at the heart of Muslim’s battle with the West”, vowing that “not one inch of Palestine will be given up”. Whether Bin Laden genuinely believed this or not is of less importance than the fact that he used the reference with a full knowledge of how his audience will react. Since his death, the emotive role of the palestinian cause has been taken up by other leaders and other movements in the region.
Since Michael Bakunun first outlined the ‘propaganda of the deed’ in the 1890s, the notion of a philosophy of the bomb that advocates using small levels of violence to evoke sympathy and support for a cause has been one of the central tenets of terrorism theory. In addition, proponents of terrorism have outlined the way that increasing levels of terrorism can be used to drive a political cause onto a wider political stage. Suicide bombings are pure exemplars of classic terrorism theory. Using suicide bombing, Al Qaeda was able to move centre stage in world affairs and engage the security apparatus of entire nations. At the same time, the movement has become a vanguard for millions of disaffected peoples who may previously have shied away from violence. Osama Bin Laden has become both an anti-establishment figure and the prophet of a new era.
Evolutions
Although Osama Bin Laden was killed in 2011, his image lives on after his death. He has become a mythical figure now, unseen for many years but living forever in cyberspace and in the imagination of those who are inspired by Al-Qaeda. For younger generations of jihadis, he is a less a important presence but his philosophies and exploits live on as a kind of vague inspiration that later leaders have been able to capitalise on.
Al-Qaeda has evolved from an isolated group at the fringes of Islamic political life to the vanguard of a movement that spans the globe. Al-Qaeda is now as much of an emblematic slogan about identity and belonging as it is the forefront of an international political movement. Suicide bombings, planned, targeted carefully, used strategically have helped Al-Qaeda in its evolutionary path. The strategic impact of Al-Qaeda suicide bombings was not lost on Islamic State, Islamic Jihad and the web of smaller movements that have sprung up in the last two decades. Like everything else, suicide bombing is undergoing an evolutionary change to reflect changes in its environment.
As international military action has attempted to smash through the infrastructures of Al-Qaeda, the movement has undergone changes. It has diffused outwards and downwards, becoming more elusive and virtual, existing in conclaves inside other violent political narratives, crossing borders as if they had no relevance. New permutations have sprung up in Indonesia and Western Europe, places far removed from the two battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. Suicide attacks in Europe have been carried out by home-grown perpetrators, rather than by fighters sent by Al-Qaeda on specific missions. There is little evidence of a direct line of command from the centre of the Al-Qaeda leadership to the small cells operating in Western Europe. Many are autonomous units within the swell of the larger Al-Qaeda inspired movement rather than sub-units of a larger organization.
Future Trends
Three emerging trends point to the future evolution in the use of suicide bombings. These are new recruits, potential new communities that will support or imitate Al-Qaeda’s suicide bombers, and the outward diffusion of mature, experienced fighters who export their skills across borders.
New Recruits
Most suicide bombers have traditionally been young males, with the exception of the Tamil Tigresses in Sri Lanka. However, in the last five years the use of women as suicide bombers has been increasing. Women are better able evade security checkpoints, particularly in regions where male-female contact is strictly circumscribed by religion or cultural practices. Women can conceal explosives beneath their clothes thus avoiding discovery during searches. This has been particularly effective in Israel where targets are either buses or convoys of Israeli soldiers. Dareen Abu Aysheh, who in 2002 detonated herself killing four Israeli soldiers, noted that “Let Sharon the coward know that every Palestinian woman will give birth to an army of martyrs, and her role will not only be confined to weeping over a son, brother or husband instead, she will become a martyr herself.” She, along with other women, is immortalised on the Women Martyrs Against Israeli Occupation website.
Many female suicide bombers are widows or sisters of previous bombers, especially in Chechnya. The Chechen Widows, or the Black Widows, carry out attacks in Russia, many in Moscow or on aeroplanes. Many of the Black Widows are involved in sieges that culminate in suicide bombings as in Beslan or Dubrovak Theatre in Moscow in 2002. In the case of the Moscow Siege, it transpired that the two female bombers associated with the siege – Fatum and Khadzhad Ganiyan – had been sold by their brother to the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev. This is common in Chechnya which has been under siege by Russian forces for a decade. It is desperately poor, with urban poverty and over crowding and rural deprivation. Women have little value in the society and can be sold or traded between families. Widows and their children become the ‘property’ of their late husband’s family. Women can also be sold to pay of family or clan debts. Women who have been raped, often by Russian soldiers, become pregnant or fail virginity tests on their wedding nights are considered outcasts. In a society where women seldom work or earn their own money, such women can be persuaded, drugged or threatened into carrying out suicide bombings. While Al-Qaeda has often claimed that Chechnya is one of the reasons behinds its war with the West, there is little tangible evidence that the Chechen Independence groups are strong Islamic fundamentalists. It is more likely that the relationship between Al-Qaeda and Muslim Chechen fighters is pragmatic rather than ideological.
The Taliban claim to have young children ready to act as suicide bombers. In the last two years, young teenagers of 14 and 16 have carried out suicide bombings in Israel. In the Philippines, survivors of hostage taking report that some of those holding them hostage were as young as ten. Generally, these are the sons of fighters who have spent the last two decades immersed either in Al-Qaeda or Al-Qaeda inspired movements. Children are likely to evade security checkpoints or be able to easily penetrate areas that are popular with foreign travellers or workers. It is not a new tactic, although the use of children is fairly new to Al-Qaeda inspired movements. During the Vietnam War, Viet Cong guerrillas sometimes sent small children strapped with explosives into American military or medical camps.
In February 2008, there were reports that two women with Downs Syndrome had been remotely detonated in the centre of Baghdad’s markets. There was a public outcry against the Sunni insurgents who were believed to be behind the attacks. However, later investigations discovered that both women were suffering from depression and schizophrenia rather than Downs Syndrome. Several weeks later, a man in a wheelchair carried out a suicide bombing against police targets in Baghdad. The use of disabled or ill people as remote detonation suicide bombers is a new trend in Iraq. However, Dr Yadgari of Kabul Medical University believes that almost 80% of suicide bombings in Afghanistan are by physically or mentally disabled perpetrators. Many of these are driven by poverty, despair or distress rather than the expected religious motivations. Suicide bombers are not celebrated in Afghani societies in the way that they are in Palestine or across pro-Al-Qaeda communities around the world.
Supportive Communities
Along with potential new recruits to carry out suicide bombings, there are a wide range of supportive communities. Emerging groups that support or are inspired by Al-Qaeda are the many expatriate communities in Western Europe, especially those from Somalia, Sudan and the Maghreb as well as Pakistani communities with Kashmiri roots. There is evidence that Turkic communities, for the first time, are increasingly receptive to the Al-Qaeda message.
As terrorism generally becomes more self-supporting, it merges along the edges with organised crime and trafficking networks. Both of these are lucrative, resource-rich streams for Al-Qaeda inspired groups. There is evidence that Al-Qaeda has benefited from people trafficking routes into Europe as well as the cross-over with organised crime in some locations. There are invisible, marginalised populations who fall below the security radars of many countries. Millions of displaced or dispossessed people are vulnerable either to crime or to radicalisation; many are refugees from ethnically or religiously motivated wars or survivors of horrific political violence. One group in particular stands out as especially vulnerable to radicalisation and extremist violence. These are the children of forced rapes and impregnations in Bosnia, the Balkans and elsewhere. These children are now coming of age in societies that define position and prospects by ethnic and religious identity. Questions about who these children will be, who will give them meaningful narratives in countries that have so far failed to tell them who they are remains untested. For emerging groups that use Al-Qaeda as an ideological or tactical source of inspiration while not subscribing to the Al-Qaeda belief system, these communities offer a wide range of support services as well as occasional recruits for suicide missions.
Skilled Fighters
Fresh from the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya scores of battle-hardened fighters returned home in the early 2010s. For the best of them, the opportunities to continue using their skills grew quickly. Some joined groups in their native countries, spreading both their skills and their interpretations of events and ideologies. When regional movements escalate their attacks or display more daring in carrying out operations, it is almost invariably an indication that experienced fighters have returned home to pass on training or take on leadership roles. Even more importantly, their presence indicates a global convergence of ideologies that subsume regional issues. This is most evident among the Taliban who, until recently, did not carry out spectacular suicide bombings or conduct out of area operations. There is also cadre of freelance fighters who will seek to join other movements or offer their skills for international use. They will actively seek the resources either to launch their own operations or to engage proactively with emerging networks. It is almost a throw-back to the most notorious of the old-school terrorists, Illich Ramirez Sanchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal. Carlos was a Venezuelan revolutionary who became synonymous with the Palestinian terrorists of the 1970s and whose allegiance varied depending on the prevailing political winds or the resources of the group he was with. In 2007, Carlos observed that Al-Qaeda inspired terrorist cells in Europe “are not professionals. They are not organized. They don’t know how to make proper explosives or proper detonators.” Few experts share Carlos’s opinion as new, unknown networks continue to appear seemingly from nowhere.
Conclusions
Suicide bombings are likely to increase in the coming years as Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, and Islamic Jihad changes shape again, mutating in response to new environments and changing conditions. Many networks and operatives now function independently of Al-Qaeda’s central core, even as they remain anchored by the Al-Qaeda movement and its spreading tentacles. Many suicide bombers use Al-Qaeda as an inspiration but do not subscribe to Al-Qaeda’s ideologies. Intelligence led operations are the new watchword in anti and counter terrorism but intelligence on suicide bombers is sparse, unreliable and often unsubstantiated. Terrorism is an endlessly mutating organism, at times highly structured and focused, at other times diffuse, nebulous and unknown. What is known is that suicide bombing is, to date, the most effective tactic and therefore not likely to be discarded by Al-Qaeda or Al-Qaeda inspired groups. Jihadi groups across the Middle East and within diaspora communities in Europe and America frequently make use of suicide bombing to draw attention and to evade anti terrorism policing. The human bomb may be simple, unsophisticated and inexpensive but it is lethal, unpredictable and almost impossible to spot before an attack.
hollow places 