SUICIDE ATTACKS AND RELIGION

Suicide Attacks and Religion: A Theory of Suicide Terrorism

Suicide Attacks and Religion: A Theory of Suicide Terrorism

Suicide terrorism in the sense we think of it today dates to the early 1980s, when young Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon came under the control of Sheik Mohamed Fadlallah. His apocalyptic preaching attracted young followers who, like Fadlallah, believed that the enemies of Islam could be destroyed through martyrdom and suicide missions. In 1983, Hezbollah launched a devastating suicide bombing campaign against U.S. interests in the region. The first suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden van into the side of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing many people and injuring many more. Six months later, another suicide bomber attacked the U.S. embassy and U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, causing massive loss of life (Rapoport, 2006).

Shortly thereafter, suicide terrorism was employed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), better known as the Tamil Tigers. This terrorist group waging war against the government of Sri Lanka used suicide terrorists to kill Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993. A Tiger suicide bomber killed 100 people in an attack on a bank in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1996 (Kushner, 2006).

In 1994, the Islamic Resistance Movement, or better known by its Arabic acronym Hamas, which means “zeal,” began using suicide terrorism against Israel. At about the same time, the Al Qaeda network, under the leadership of Osama bin Laden, began planning to use suicide missions against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, as well as the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in 2000. Also in 2000, the second Palestinian uprising, or intifada, saw suicide attacks move to the forefront as the terrorist weapon of choice (Rapoport, 2006).

Religiously sanctioned suicide attacks are not unique to the modern period or confined to the Middle Eastern region. Similar types of assaults are known to have occurred over a span of several centuries in three little-known Muslim communities of the Indian Ocean region: those of the Malabar coast of southwestern India; Atjeh in northern Sumatra; and Mindanao and Sulu in southern Philippines. Although these earlier suicide attacks in Asia were not undertaken with the same political awareness that characterizes the organizers of the incidents in Beirut and Israel, they represent essentially the same phenomena: protests against Western authority, colonial rule, or occupation by Muslims who thought they had no other means of fighting against a superior military power (Kushner, 2006).

It can be argued that these suicide bombers are merely performing acts of martyrdom that first took place 13 centuries ago after the death of Muhammad. The prophet's death in 632 left Muslims without a leader to watch over the faith. Several followers met to rectify this by selecting a caliph, a temporal authority to guide the community, but religion soon gave way to politics. Within 40 years after the prophet's demise, various caliphs had managed to assassinate their way to power, and Islam had divided into two ...