SUICIDE TERRORISM: MARTYRDOM FOR ORGANIZATIONAL OBJECTIVES

Journal of Third World Studies, Spring 2006 by Winkates, Jim

INTRODUCTION

The examination of suicide terrorism has taken on more urgency in the past several years. What is decidedly different in the modern, global war on terrorism (GWOT) is that noncombatant civilians have become the most frequent and virtually the exclusive target of violence. Increased resort to extremely violent forms of terrorism revived with the September 2000 inauguration of the second Intifada, resulting in a tragically heightened number of suicide bombings mostly in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and followed twelve months later by the four suicide aircraft hijackings of September 11, 2001. The unprecedented loss of life in these suicide attacks spurred deep concern among governments and societies alike. In May 2002, FBI Director Robert Mueller concluded that future suicide attacks on US soil were "inevitable."1 Prospects of a possible WMD (nuclear, biological, chemical, radiological) suicide terrorist attack have also increased. As the "N actor" proliferators grow and WMD plans and materials are shared covertly, the world has become an even more unpredictable and dangerous place.

Since the end of the Cold War, terrorism has become more lethal and has brought heightened risk and vulnerability especially to US citizenry. The stakes have been raised as traditional constraints (viz. great power conflict control, deterrence, and sanctuary) have dissipated. In worst case commentary, senior US officials have concluded that a future terrorist attack involving WMD on US territory becomes ever more likely.2

In the first three and a half years of post-Intifada ("uprising") violence (September 2000 - February 2004), the combined Israeli and Palestinian deaths of more than 3500 people already approached the total death count for the Northern Ireland conflict since 1969.3 The spread of the suicide tactic to other regions, including Western Europe, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, and Oceania, has fortified US governmental intentions to further deter, defend against, prosecute, pursue, suppress, and pre-empt potential threats. The sheer US geographic vulnerabilities alone pose a daunting challenge. For example, the continental US has 95,000 miles of coastline, 429 commercial airports with 30,000 daily flights, serviced by a fleet of 6800 US commercial aircraft, with 200,000 registered general aviation (private) aircraft, 361 commercial seaports (official ports of entry), and 104 nuclear power plants.

The primary purpose of this article is to assess the relevant literature and commentary on past suicide events, especially in the Middle East, and to begin to judge how best to deter, prevent, and defend against likely future suicide terror attacks in the US. What can be learned from past suicide terror incidents, about the organizational sponsors and the suicide bombers, to apply defensively or offensively against these likely attacks?

DEFINITIONS

While no single definition of "terrorism" has gained universal acceptance, the US Department of State relies on the statutory code definition for its annual, congressionally-mandated, fact gathering. Despite some serious data collection and calculation errors with its initial 2004 report, which required immediate revisions and cabinet-level apologies, the annual report remained the most authoritative single source for terrorist incident data until 2005. In US statute law terrorism is defined as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience."4 The US Government has employed this definition since 1983, giving it some statistical comparability over more than twenty years. At the same time, it defines terrorism very broadly to encompass all civilian targets as well as military personnel who are unarmed, not on duty, or in a locale which is not in a theater of war or in which "a state of military hostilities does not exist."

Another common definition, among many other variants within the US Government orbit, includes "the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological."5 This author's own definition, crafted over time and intended to embrace other key variables and more detail, injects issues of property damage, victimhood, and change or not in public or private policies. Terrorism then is defined as "the premeditated threat or use of violence against persons or property, designed to intimidate noncombatant victims, the object of which is to change or to stabilize private or public policy."6 In virtually all definitions the telling distinction between terrorism and other kinds of crime is that the terrorist target (governmental or private authority) differs from the victim (person attacked), while target and victim are one and the same in common crime. Interestingly, the author knows of no society nor sovereign state in which terrorism, however defined, is not a crime in local law.