Discourse on Suicide Terrorism: A Must Read

By Animesh Roul

As I was thinking to post couple of latest reading materials on Suicide Terrorism here at CTB, reports of suicide attacks in Iarq, Pakistan and Algeria came thick and fast.

On July 11, Iraqi town Garmah (near Fallujha) witnessed suicide attacks killing at least 20 people and injured around fifty others when couple of suicide bombers have blown themselves up among a crowd and again two more suicide bombers exploded when people rushed to evacuate injured from the site. The bombers have succeeded in their plans to destroy a gathering of local tribesmen (mostly Sunni) who were planning to join the Iraqi security forces to fight Qaeda militants in western Anbar province.(I am surprised how Xinuha news agency reported this and not other media?). Elsewhere, same day, a suicide attack took place in Lakhdaria, Algeria by Qaeda’s North African wing [Al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb] that killed at least eight people and injured over 20 people. A day after, on July 12, suicide attacks took place in Miranshah and Swat, in Pakistan. Five people were killed in both incidents including three policemen in Swat attack alone. Though pro-Qaeda Taliban’s hand suspected, they denied any involvement in the attacks

Most of us can understand how they kill themselves, others and where they come from, but not many of us can fathom why they go to such an extreme. Leonard Cole (Terror: How Israel Has Coped and What America Can Learn, 2007) has observed that there is a “fascination in reading about and understanding the rationale of suicide bombers, but much less attention is paid to the consequences of their actions [...]”. He is right to some extent. But to counter this dreaded terrorist act, a better understating of the act itself and the motivation of perpetrators would be more useful and equally imperative.

I would like to draw attention of readers to one review essay by Martha Crenshaw in Security Studies (T&F), Vol. 16 (1), Jan-March 2007). She has reviewed some 13 seminal books on suicide terrorism in this essay titled "Explaining Suicide Terrorism: A Review Essay". Reviewed books include Robert Pape’s Dying to Win (Random House, 2005), Ami Pedahzur’s Suicide Terrorism (Polity Press, 2005), Mia Bloom’s Dying to Kill (Columbia Univ. Press, 2005) and Shaul Shay’s The Shahids (Transaction Pub., 2004). Crenshaw also included two translated books: German author Christoph Reuter’s My Life is a Weapon (Trans by Helena Ragg-Kirkby, Princeton Univ Press, 2004) and French author Farhad Khosrokhavar’s Suicde Bombers (Trans by David Macey, Pluto press, 2005). Couple of Assaf Moghadam's work on the subject (in Pedahzur (ed), Root Causes Suicide Terrorism, Routledge, 2006) also figures in this review.

I hope it would serve greatly who can’t avail all 13 books on the subject to start with.

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