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A suicide attack (also known by a wide variety of other names, see below) is a deliberate attack in which the perpetrators suicide as part of the attack. These attacks are a form of murder–suicide that is often associated with terrorism or war. When the attackers are labelled as terrorists, the attacks are sometimes referred to as an act of suicide terrorism. While generally not inherently regulated under international law, suicide attacks in their execution often violate international laws of war, such as prohibitions against perfidy and targeting civilians.
Suicide attacks have occurred in various contexts, ranging from military campaigns—such as the Japanese kamikaze pilots during World War II —to more contemporary Islamic terrorist campaigns—including the September 11 attacks in 2001. Initially, these attacks primarily targeted military, police, and public officials. This approach continued with groups like Al-Qaeda, which combined mass civilian targets with political leadership. While only a few suicide attacks occurred between 1945 and 1980, between 1981 and September 2015 a total of 4,814 suicide attacks were carried out in over 40 countries, resulting in over 45,000 deaths. The global frequency of these attacks increased from an average of three per year in the 1980s to roughly one per month in the 1990s, almost one per week from 2001 to 2003, and roughly one per day from 2003 to 2015. In 2019, there were 149 suicide bombings in 24 countries, carried out by 236 individuals. These attacks resulted in 1,850 deaths and 3,660 injuries. They have been used by a wide range of political ideologies, from far right (Japan and Germany in WWII) to far left (such as the PKK and JRA).
According to Bruce Hoffman and Assaf Moghadam, suicide attacks distinguish themselves from other terror attacks due to their heightened lethality and destructiveness. Perpetrators benefit from the ability to conceal weapons and make last-minute adjustments, and there is no need for escape plans or rescue teams. There is also no need to conceal their identities. In the case of suicide bombings, they do not require remote or delayed detonation. Although they accounted for only 4% of all "terrorist attacks" between 1981 and 2006, they resulted in 32% of terrorism-related deaths at 14,599 deaths. 90% of these attacks occurred in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. By mid-2015, approximately three-quarters of all suicide attacks occurred in just three countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.
William Hutchinson describes suicide attacks as a weapon of psychological warfare aimed at instilling fear in the target population, undermining areas where the public feels secure, and eroding the "fabric of trust that holds societies together." This weapon is further used to demonstrate the lengths perpetrators will go to achieve their goals. Motivations for suicide attackers vary. Kamikaze pilots acted under military orders, while other attacks have been driven by religious or Nationalism purposes. According to analyst Robert Pape, prior to 2003, most attacks targeted occupying forces. For example, 90% of attacks in Iraq before the civil war started in 2003 aimed at forcing out occupying forces. Pape's tabulation of suicide attacks runs from 1980 to early 2004 in , and to 2009 in Cutting the Fuse. According to American-French anthropologist Scott Atran, from 2000 to 2004, the ideology of Islamist Istishhad played a predominant role in motivating the majority of bombers.
An alternative definition provided by Jason Burke, a journalist who has lived among Islamic militants, suggests that most define terrorism as "the use or threat of serious violence" to advance some kind of "cause", stressing that terrorism is a tactic. This definition is often referred to by the euphemism "political violence".
Academic Fred Halliday has written that assigning the descriptor of "terrorist" or "terrorism" to the actions of a group is a tactic used by states to deny "legitimacy" and "rights to protest and rebel".F. Halliday. (2002). Two Hours that Shook the World: September 11, 2001 – Causes and Consequences, Saqi; , pp. 70–71 Israeli diplomacy has been very influential in defining terrorism as a concept. This was largely led by Menachem Begin, who himself has been labelled as a terrorist leader, as commander of the Irgun militant group before Israel was recognized as a nation state by .
Victims of suicide bombings and the bombers are both commonly referred to as martyrs, by opposing groups, or when referring to different attacks. Some Arabic speaking militant groups and their supporters call suicide attacks "martyrdom operations" (). The term "suicide" is avoided by people who think an attack was justified, because Islam forbids taking one's own life in most circumstances. The concept of martyrdom in Islam is broad including people who died in plagues and women who died in childbirth, as well as fallen combatants who did not intend to die. According to Israeli academic Assaf Moghadam, the term "martyrdom operation" has been used by Hamas, Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and other Palestinian factions. The term "martyrdom operation" was also used in March 2003 by the Iraq administration to referred to suicide attacks on invading troops during the 2003 Iraq war, and in particular their promise to retake the Baghdad airport.
Victims of suicide attacks are also referred to as martyrs by a wide variety of cultures. Benazir Bhutto, the leader of the Pakistan People's Party, is the most famous example of a progressive Muslim who is regarded as a martyr after being murdered in a suicide attack. Bhutto was assassinated in 2007 by a teenage Islamic extremist. After her death many things in Pakistan, mostly related to education, were named or renamed in her honour, referring to her by the title "shaheed" (martyr).
When an ISIS suicide bomber blew himself up at Rafah crossing in 2017, he was described as a suicide bomber (فجر انتحاري), not a martyr. The border guard who was killed attempting to stop him crossing into Egypt, a member of Hamas' Qassam Brigades, was described as a martyr () and his death was described as martyrdom (, ). This language was used by Palestinian media, some international media, and even the bomber's family. His family condemned him publicly, describing his actions as unpatriotic and criminal, and announced they would not be holding funeral services for him. Gaza's clans referred to the bombing as suicide terrorism ().
"" was coined in 2002 by Irwin Cotler, a member of the Canadian parliament, in an effort to focus attention on the alleged intention of Genocide by militant Palestinians in their calls to "wipe Israel off the map".
In German-speaking areas the term "sacrifice bombing" () was proposed in 2012 by German scholar }. This is different to the German word used by Nazi Germany to refer to self sacrifice attacks.
Hunger strikes are another use of self harm, and actual or potential suicide, that is used by some militant groups.This is an example.
Other than as a way to cause enemy casualties, another situation in which some militaries and related bodies (such as intelligence agencies) encourage their own members to commit suicide is too avoid being captured by the enemy. The concept also often includes the use of intentional friendly fire. Either to avoid disclose of military secrets, avoid the need for a prisoner exchange, or for more intangible ideological motives. Individuals are encouraged by a perception that capture is a fate worse than death, and the likelihood of torture is strongly emphasised in internal propaganda. Sometimes, to the point that even civilians embrace the concept of dying (or killing people on their own side) to avoid capture.
In some cases, suicide mission been provided with suicide pills to take if they are at risk of capture. Some militaries of nation states avoid equipping their troops with any means specifically designed to facilitate suicide, but imply that soldiers are obliged to resort to extreme measures to avoid capture including taking their own lives, or killing their comrades, with whatever means are available. Hand grenades have been repeatedly used or recommended. In 1952, three Chinese soldiers reportedly killed themselves with hand grenades to avoid capture. Military commanders have reportedly recommended explosives such as hand grenades as a means of suicide, for the advantage of killing as many of the would-be captors as possible, thus converting the situation into an improvised suicide attack.
Other sources say that suicide bombings in places like the Philippines arrose only recently, due to foreign influence from international cultists such as ISIS.
Moro people who performed suicide attacks were called mag-sabil, and the suicide attacks were known as parang-sabil. The Spanish called them . The idea of the juramentado was considered part of jihad in the Moros' Islamic religion. During an attack, a juramentado would throw himself at his targets and kill them with bladed weapons such as barongs and kris until he was killed. The Moros performed juramentado suicide attacks against the Spanish in the Spanish–Moro conflict of the 16th to the 19th centuries, against the Americans in the Moro Rebellion from 1899 to 1913), and against the Japanese in World War II.
The Moro () launched suicide attacks on the Japanese, Spanish, Americans and Filipinos, but did not attack the non-Muslim Chinese as the Chinese were not considered enemies of the Moro people. The Japanese responded to these suicide attacks by massacring all known family members and relatives of the attackers.
According to historian Stephan Dale, the Moro were not the only culture who carried out suicide attacks "in their fight against Western hegemony and colonial rule". In the 18th century, suicide tactics were used on the Malabar Coast of southwestern India, and in Aceh in Northern Sumatra as well (see above).
The oldest story that is widely described as a suicide attack or martyrdom operation in modern sources is the biblical story of Samson's destruction of the Philistine temple in Gaza in . A study by German scholar analyzes analogous behavior represented in literary texts from the antiquity through the 20th century, these being Ajax, Samson Agonistes, The Robbers, and The Just Assassins. The study concluded "that suicide bombings are not the expressions of specific cultural peculiarities or exclusively religious fanaticisms. Instead, they represent a strategic option of the desperately weak who strategically disguise themselves under the mask of apparent strength, terror, and invincibility". Other writers have also interpreted Samson's death suicide attack. A few have compared Samson to the men who were responsible for the September 11 attacks.
An article in BBC Arabic claimed the Sicarii were the first group to carry out suicide attacks. In September 2023 the BBC responded to a complaint, deleted the Sicarii and reworded the second example so that the revised article called the Order of Assassins (Ismaeli Shia Shia) the first. However, both groups were killed by their opponents (see above).
On 5 February 1831, during the Belgian Revolution, a gale blew a Dutch gunboat under the command of Jan van Speyk into the quay of the port of Antwerp. As the ship was stormed by Belgians, van Speyk refused to surrender, instead igniting the ship's gunpowder with either his gun or cigar, blowing up the ship. The explosion killed 28 out of the 31 crewmen and an unknown number of Belgians.
(access date: 17 January 2016)
In 1938 300 Chinese troops reportedly killed themselves with hand grenades to avoid being captured. Hand grenade suicide to avoid capture has also been used by other militaries (see above), and allegedly the recommended by the Golani Brigades leader.
In the Xinhai Revolution, many Chinese revolutionaries became martyrs in battle. "Dare to Die" student corps were founded for student revolutionaries wanting to fight against Qing dynasty rule. Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing promoted the Dare to Die Corps. Huang said, "We must die, so let us die bravely." Suicide squads were formed by Chinese students going into battle, knowing that they would be killed fighting against overwhelming odds.
The 72 Martyrs of Huanghuagang died in the uprising that began the Wuchang Uprising. They were recognized as heroes and martyrs by the Kuomintang party and the Republic of China. The martyrs in the Dare to Die Corps who died in battle wrote letters to family members before heading off to certain death. The italics=no was built as a monument to the 72 martyrs. The deaths of the revolutionaries helped the establishment of the Republic of China, overthrowing the Qing dynasty. Other Dare to Die student corps in the Xinhai revolution were led by students who later became major military leaders in Republic of China, like Chiang Kai-shek and Huang Shaoxiong with the Muslim Bai Chongxi against Qing dynasty forces.
Dare to Die troops were used by warlords. The Kuomintang used one to put down an insurrection in Canton. Many women joined them in addition to men to achieve martyrdom against China's opponents.Marjorie Wall Bingham, Susan Hill Gross (1980). 9780865960282, Glenhurst Publications. . ISBN 9780865960282 They were known as 烈士 (; martyrs) after accomplishing their mission.
During the January 28 Incident (28 January – 3 March 1932), a Dare to Die squad struck against the Japanese.
Suicide bombing was also used against the Japanese. A Dare to Die Corps was effectively used against Japanese units at the Battle of Taierzhuang. They used swords and wore suicide vests made out of grenades.
A Chinese soldier detonated a grenade vest and killed 20 Japanese soldiers at Sihang Warehouse. Chinese troops Explosive belt and threw themselves under Japanese tanks to blow them up. This tactic was used during the Battle of Shanghai, to stop a Japanese tank column when an attacker exploded himself beneath the lead tank, and at the Battle of Taierzhuang where Chinese troops with dynamite and grenades strapped to themselves rushed Japanese tanks and blew themselves up,Ong Siew Chey (2025). 9789814312998, Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd. . ISBN 9789814312998 in one incident obliterating four Japanese tanks with grenade bundles.
During the Communist Revolution, fighting the Communists formed Dare to Die Corps to fight for their organizations. During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, protesting students also formed "Dare to Die Corps" to risk their lives defending the protest leaders.
During the Battle for Berlin the italics=no flew "self-sacrifice missions" () against Soviet bridges over the River Oder. These "total missions" were flown by pilots of the Leonidas Squadron. From 17 to 20 April 1945, using any available aircraft, the italics=no claimed the squadron had destroyed 17 bridges. However, military historian Antony Beevor believes this claim was exaggerated and only the railway bridge at Küstrin was definitely destroyed. He comments that "thirty-five pilots and aircraft was a high price to pay for such a limited and temporary success". The missions were called off when the Soviet ground forces reached the vicinity of the squadron's airbase at Jüterbog.Antony Beevor. Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, p. 238; ; accessed April 18, 2015.
Kamikaze was a ritual act of self-sacrifice carried out by Japanese pilots of explosive-laden aircraft against Allied warships which occurred on a large scale at the end of World War II. About 3000 attacks were made and about 50 ships were sunk.
Later in the war, as Japan became more desperate, this act became formalised and ritualised. Planes were outfitted with explosives specific to the task of a suicide mission. Kamikaze strikes were a weapon of asymmetric war used by the Empire of Japan against United States Navy and Royal Navy , although the armoured flight deck of the Royal Navy carriers diminished kamikaze effectiveness. Along with fitting existing aircraft with bombs, the Japanese also developed the Ohka, a purpose-built suicide aircraft that was air-launched from a carrying bomber and propelled to the target at high speed using rocket engines. The Japanese Navy also used piloted called kaiten (heaven shaker) on suicide missions. Although sometimes called , these were modified versions of the unmanned torpedoes of the time and are distinct from the torpedo-firing midget submarines used earlier in the war, which were designed to shore defenses and return to a mother ship after firing their torpedoes. Although extremely hazardous, these midget submarine attacks were not technically suicide missions, as the earlier midget submarines had escape hatches. Kaitens, however, provided no means of escape.
American tanks in Seoul were attacked by North Korean suicide squads, who used satchel charges. North Korean soldier Li Su-Bok is considered a hero for destroying an American tank with a suicide bomb.
In 1952, three Chinese soldiers reportedly killed themselves with hand grenades to avoid capture.
However, employment manuals for atomic demolition munitions specifically describe the firing party and their guard retreating from the emplacement site, at which point the device is protected through a combination of passive security measures including concealment, camouflage and the use of decoys, as well as active security measures including booby-traps, obstacles such as concertina wire and landmines, and long ranged artillery fire. Further, the SADM included a Field Wire Remote Control System (FWRCS). This device enabled the sending of safe/arm and firing signals to the weapon via a wire for safe remote detonation of the weapon.
The Lehi militant who built the bombs for Operation Samson, the intended suicide attack in Jerusalem Central Prison in 1947, later had a leadership role in the Israeli military's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons division ().
It was carried out by three foreign fighters from the Japanese Red Army (a communist militant group from Japan) in corroboration with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations (PFLP-EO) division, led by Wadie Haddad, a rebellious offshoot of the PFLP. Some reports at the time labelled the incident a "Kamikaze" attack, but others have criticized the label, including the surviving attacker's interpreter. The Kamikaze were a unit of suicide bombers in the airforce of imperial Japan in WWII, the Empire of Japan had a very different ideology to the JRA. Researchers from Duke University described the JRA's motives as "rooted in anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and anti-capitalism". In 2010, Ze'ev Sarig, the former manager of Lod Airport, compared the attack to the September 11 attacks in New York, "This attack was for Israelis what the September 11th attacks were for Americans", when trying to sue North Korea for the attack in a United States court in Puerto Rico in 2010.
The early 1980s saw an increase in the use of terrorist tactics in the Middle East, by ideologically diverse groups.
The book The Revolt, written by the former Irgun commander Menachem Begin before he became Prime Minister, influenced groups from a wide variety of ideologies, allegedly including Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.
In Rise and Kill First journalist Ronen Bergman wrote that Hezbollah's 1983 campaign of coordinated terrorist attacks against United States, French, and Israeli military installations in Beirut drew inspiration from the Irgun's 1946 bombing campaign against the British created an atmosphere of fear which eventually forced the British to withdraw.
Bergman further asserts that the influence of Israeli-sponsored terrorist operations on the emerging Islamists was also of operational nature: the Israeli proxy Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners had carried out multiple deadly car bomb in Lebanon long before the emergence of Hezbollah, a Mossad agent told Bergman: "I saw from a distance one of the cars blowing up and demolishing an entire street. We were teaching the Lebanese how effective a car bomb could be. Everything that we saw later with Hezbollah sprang from what they saw had happened after these operations".
(2018). 9781473694729, John Murray Press. ISBN 9781473694729
Use of suicide by the LTTE had mixed results. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) pioneered the use of suicide bombings against civilian and political targets. In 2000, Yoram Schweitzer called the LTTE "unequivocally the most effective and brutal terrorist organization ever to utilize suicide terrorism". Their struggle for an Independence state in the North and East of the island lasted for 26 years and led to the deaths of two heads of state or government, several ministers, and up to 100,000 combatants and civilians, from by a UN estimate. Politically, its attacks succeeded in halting the deployment of the Indian peace keeping troops to Sri Lanka and the subsequent postponement of the peace-talks in Sri Lanka. Nonetheless, the conflict ended in May 2009 not with an independent Tamil Eelam, but with the overrunning of LTTE strongholds and the killing of its leadership by the Sri Lankan military and security forces.
| + Suicide attacks during the Cold War ! Year !! Date ! Location !! Event | ||
| Attack on Bankstown Airport by Philip Henryk Wozniak in a stolen light aircraft | ||
| Suicide bombing of Wanganui Computer Centre by Neil Roberts | ||
| USA | Mason County jail bombing | |
| + Recent suicide attacks (by organization) | ||
| Islamic State | 424 | 4949 |
| Al-Qaeda (Central) | 20 | 3391 |
| Taliban (Afghanistan) | 665 | 2925 |
| Al-Qaeda in Iraq | 121 | 1541 |
| Tamil Tigers (LTTE) | 82 | 961 |
| Al-Shabab | 64 | 726 |
| Hamas | 78 | 511 |
| Al-Qaeda (ArabianPeninsula) | 23 | 354 |
| Ansar al-Sunna (Iraq) | 28 | 319 |
| Palestinian Islamic Jihad | 50 | 225 |
| Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades | 40 | 107 |
| Taliban (Pakistan) | 7 | 92 |
| Ansar Bait alMaqdis | 10 | 84 |
| PKK (Turkey) | 10 | 32 |
| Hezbollah | 7 | 28 |
| Other groups or unidentified attackers | 2547 | 22877 |
| + Suicide attacks by location | ||
| Iraq | 1938 | 20084 |
| Pakistan | 490 | 6287 |
| Afghanistan | 1059 | 4748 |
| United States | 4 | 2997 |
| Syria | 172 | 2058 |
| Sri Lanka | 115 | 1584 |
| Nigeria | 103 | 1347 |
| Yemen | 87 | 1128 |
| Lebanon | 66 | 1007 |
| Somalia | 91 | 829 |
| Russia | 86 | 782 |
| Israel | 113 | 721 |
| Algeria | 24 | 281 |
| Indonesia | 10 | 252 |
| Egypt | 21 | 246 |
| Kenya | 2 | 213 |
| Iran | 8 | 160 |
| Libya | 29 | 155 |
| India | 15 | 123 |
| Turkey | 29 | 115 |
| United Kingdom | 5 | 78 |
| Palestine | 59 | 67 |
| All other countries | 99 | 674 |
Hamas's most sustained suicide bombing campaign from 2003 to 2004 involved several members of Hebron's italics=no (mosque) al-Jihad soccer team. Most lived in the Wad Abu Katila neighborhood and belonged to the al-Qawasmeh hamula (clan). Several were classmates in the neighborhood's local branch of the Palestinian Polytechnic College. Their ages ranged from 18 to 22. At least eight team members were dispatched to suicide shooting and bombing operations by the Hamas military leader in Hebron, Abdullah al-Qawasmeh. Al-Qawasmeh was killed by Israeli forces in June 2003 and succeeded by his relatives Basel al-Qawasmeh, killed in September 2003, and Imad al-Qawasmeh, captured on 133 October 2004. In retaliation for the assassinations of Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on 22 March 2004 and Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi on 17 April 2004, Imad al-Qawasmeh dispatched Ahmed al-Qawasmeh and Nasim al-Ja'abri for a suicide attack on two buses in Beer Sheva. The attack took place on 31 August 2004. In December 2004, Hamas declared a halt to suicide attacks.
On 15 January 2008, the son of Mahmoud al-Zahar, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, was killed. Another son had been killed in a 2003 assassination attempt on Zahar. Three days later, Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the Israel Defense Forces to seal all border crossings with Gaza, cutting off the flow of supplies to the territory in an attempt to stop rocket barrages on Israeli border towns. Nevertheless, violence from both sides only increased. On 4 February 2008, friends Mohammed Herbawi and Shadi Zghayer, who were members of the Masjad al-Jihad soccer team, staged a suicide bombing at a commercial center in Dimona, Israel. Herbawi had previously been arrested as a 17-year-old on 15 March 2003 shortly after a suicide bombing on Haifa bus, which was done by Mamoud al-Qawasmeh on March 5, 2003. Herbawi had coordinated suicide shooting attacks on Israeli settlements by others on the team, such as on 7 March 2003 with an attack by Muhsein, Hazem al-Qawasmeh, Fadi Fahuri, and Sufian Hariz. He was also involved with another set of suicide bombings in Hebron and Jerusalem on 17 and 18 May 2003 by Fuad al-Qawasmeh, Basem Takruri, and Mujahed al-Ja'abri. Although Hamas claimed responsibility for the Dimona attack, the politburo leadership in Damascus and Beirut was initially unaware of who initiated and carried out the attack. It appears that Ahmad al-Ja'abri, military commander of Hamas's Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades in Gaza, requested the suicide attack through Ayoub Qawasmeh, Hamas's military liaison in Hebron, who knew where to look for eager young men who had self-radicalized together and had already mentally prepared themselves for martyrdom. THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2008 (p. 9) , Edge.org; retrieved August 19, 2012.
The efficacy of suicide bombing, however, does not appear to have been demonstrated by the al-Aqsa Intifada. During this Intifada, the number of suicide attacks increased markedly. In the first campaign from 1994 to 1997, there were 14 suicide attacks, in the second from 2001 to 2005, there were 93 attacks.(Click "Search Database", then under "filter by", click "location", click Israel and after getting the results click "year".)
The drop in suicide bombings in Israel has been explained by the many security measures taken by the Israeli government, especially the building of the "separation barrier", and a general consensus among Palestinians that the bombings were a "losing strategy". The suicides and other attacks on civilians had "a major impact" on the attitudes of the Israeli public. Instead of creating demoralization, the attacks generated even greater support for the right-wing Likud party which brought to office another hardliner, the former general Ariel Sharon. In 2001, 89% of Israeli Jews supported the Sharon government's policy of "targeted assassinations" of Palestinian militants involved in terrorism against Israel, the number rising to 92% in 2003. Opinion polls of the Jewish Israelis found 7884% supported the "separation barrier" in 2004. Peace Index / Most Israelis support the fence, despite Palestinian suffering – Haaretz — Israel News — Ephraim Yaar, Tamar Hermann — March 10, 2004
The PKK began their insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984. However, they did not carry out their first suicide attack until the 1990s.
According to the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism's Suicide Attack Database, as of 2015, ten suicide attacks by the PKK from 1996 to 2012 killed 32 people and injured 116.
On 12 May 2025, the Kurdistan Workers' Party announced it would disband as part of a peace initiative with Turkey.
In addition to United States military targets, they attacked many civilian targets such as Shiite as well as international offices of the UN and the Red Cross. Iraqi men waiting to apply for jobs with the new army and police force were targets. In the lead up to the Iraqi parliamentary election on 30 January 2005, suicide attacks upon civilian and police personnel involved with the increased. There were also reports of the insurgents co-opting disabled people as involuntary suicide bombers. "Handicapped boy who was made into a bomb", Smh.com.au, February 2, 2005; retrieved August 19, 2012.
In 2017 and 2019, during the Sinai insurgency, there were suicide bombings in the Gaza Strip by local ISIS sympathizers. ISIS are a global extremist group, with an ideology that fundamentally opposes the Palestinian nationalism of Hamas and the other groups above. In 2017 two Hamas government border guards were killed while attempting to intercept an ISIS suicide bomber at Rafah Crossing. The Hamas government responded to that bombing with a crackdown on followers of "deviant ideologies" (meaning ISIS and similar groups). In 2018, members of Sinai Province "declared war" on Hamas, demanding Hamas release ISIS militants held in Gaza's prisons. Then in 2019, another suicide attack – also attributed to ISIS – directly targeted Gaza Strip police. Three police officers were killed, all three victims were allegedly members of Hamas. Gaza's Security forces responded by arresting ten people whom they suspected were members of the cell who arranged the attack.
In the following years, ISIS members also carried out suicide attacks in different locations. In December 2018, according to the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, at least three suicide bombers blew themselves up inside the city of As-Suwayda in the Jabal al-Druze of southern Syria. This was in addition to suicide bombers who attacked seven villages in the surrounding suburbs. According to The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, In January 2019, ISIS carried out a suicide bombing attack using a car bomb against a joint American-Kurdish patrol. 2021 Kabul airport attack was suicide bombing attack. In January 2021, ISIS claimed responsibility for a double suicide bombing in a Baghdad market that killed at least 32 people and wounded more than 100. It was the first major suicide attack by the Islamic State group in the previous three years. In June 2025, the Syrian Interior Ministry announced a suicide attack carried out by a member of the Islamic State cult in Church. According to the statement, he shot at worshippers in a church and then blew himself up inside.
On 22 May 2017, the Manchester Arena bombing occurred which resulted in 23 deaths and 1,017 injuries. The attack was carried out as people were leaving an Ariana Grande concert.
In the West Bank, the IDF has at times demolished homes that belong to families whose children or landlords whose tenants had volunteered for such missions, whether completed or not. Through No Fault of Their Own: Punitive House Demolitions during the al-Aqsa Intifada B'Tselem, November 2004 An internal review starting in October 2004 brought an end to the policy, but it was resumed in 2014. Other military measures taken during the suicide attack campaign included: a widescale re-occupation of the West Bank and blockading of Palestinian towns; "targeted assassinations" of militants, an approach used since the 1970s; raids against militants suspected of plotting attacks; mass arrests; curfews; stringent travel restrictions; and physical separation from Palestinians via the Israeli West Bank barrier in and around the West Bank. The Second Intifada and its suicide attacks are often dated as ending around the time of an unofficial ceasefire with some of the most powerful Palestinian militant groups in 2005. A new "knife intifada" started in September 2015. Still, although many Palestinians were killed in the process of stabbing or attempting to stab Israelis, their deaths were not "a precondition for the success" of their mission and so are not considered suicide attacks by many observers.
In the United States, the element of suicide in the 9/11 attacks persuaded many that previously unthinkable, "out of the box" strategic policies in a "war on terrorism" were necessary. This included "preventive war" against countries not immediately attacking the U.S., to almost unlimited surveillance of virtually any person in the United States by the government without normal congressional and judicial oversight. Understanding Suicide Terrorism And How To Stop It, npr.org; accessed 22 March 2015 These responses "produced their own costs and risks—in lives, national debt, and America's standing in the world".
The "heightened security measures" also affected the target populations. During the bombing campaign, Israelis were questioned by armed guards and given a quick pat down before being let into cafés. In the U.S., the post-9/11 era meant "previously inconceivable security measures—in airports and other transportation hubs, hotels and office buildings, sports stadiums and concert halls".
In the case of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., at least in the short term, the results were negative for Al-Qaeda, as well as the Taliban. Since the attacks, Western nations have diverted massive resources towards stopping similar actions, as well as increasing border security, and military actions against various countries believed to have been involved with terrorism. Critics of the War on Terrorism suggest the results were negative, as the subsequent actions of the United States and other countries has increased the number of recruits and their willingness to carry out suicide bombings.
Anthropologist Scott Atran wrote, "Terrorists are not sufficiently different from everyone else. Insights into homegrown jihadi attacks will have to come from understanding group dynamics, not individual psychology. Small-group dynamics can trump individual personality to produce horrific behavior in otherwise ordinary people. Atran's research has found that the attacks are not organized from the top down, but occur from the bottom up. It is usually a matter of following one's friends and ending up in environments that foster groupthink. Atran is also critical of the claim that terrorists simply crave destruction; rather, they are often motivated by beliefs they hold sacred, as well as their moral reasoning.
A study of the remains of 110 suicide bombers in Afghanistan for the first part of 2007 by Afghan pathologist Yusef Yadgari found 80% were suffering from physical ailments such as missing limbs (before the blasts), cancer, or leprosy. Also, in contrast to earlier findings of suicide bombers, the Afghan bombers were "not celebrated like their counterparts in other Arab nations. Afghan bombers are not featured on posters or in videos as martyrs". Menachem Begin called his only known suicide militant as "Meir the Stump", a reference to his amputated left arm.
Robert Pape, director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism, found the majority of suicide bombers came from the educated middle classes. For example, Humam Balawi, who perpetrated the Camp Chapman attack in Afghanistan in 2010, was a medical doctor.Joby Warrick, The Triple Agent, New York: Doubleday, 2011. p. 37
A 2004 paper by Harvard University Professor of Public Policy Alberto Abadie "casts doubt on the widely held belief that terrorism stems from poverty, finding instead that terrorist violence is related to a nation's level of political freedom", with countries "in some intermediate range of political freedom" more prone to terrorism than countries with "high levels" of political freedom or countries with "highly authoritarian regimes". "When governments are weak, political instability is elevated, so conditions are favorable for the appearance of terrorism".Alberto Abadie. Freedom squelches terrorist violence . News.harvard.edu; November 4, 2004; accessed August 19, 2012. A 2020 study found that while well-educated and economically well-off individuals are more likely to be behind suicide terrorism, it is not because these individuals self-select into suicide terrorism, but rather because terrorist groups are more likely to select high-quality individuals to commit suicide terrorist attacks.
Pape found that among Islamic suicide terrorists, 97 percent were unmarried and 84 percent were male. If the Kurdistan Workers' Party was excluded, this changed to be 91 percent male. A study conducted by the U.S. military in Iraq in 2008 found that suicide bombers were almost always single men without children aged 18 to 30, with a mean age of 22, and were typically students or employed in blue-collar occupations. In a 2011 doctoral thesis, anthropologist Kyle R. Gibson reviewed three studies documenting 1,208 suicide attacks from 1981 to 2007 and found that countries with higher polygyny rates correlated with greater production of suicide terrorists. Political scientists Valerie M. Hudson and Bradley Thayer noted that countries where polygyny is widely practiced tend to have higher homicide rates and Rape statistics. The pair have argued that because Islam is the only major religious tradition where polygyny is still largely condoned, the higher degrees of marital inequality in Muslim world compared to most of the world causes them to have larger populations susceptible to suicide terrorism. Hudson and Theyer contended that Houri for Shahid serves as a mechanism to mitigate in-group conflict within Islamic countries by redirecting their violence towards out-groups.
Along with his research on the Tamil Tigers, Scott Atran found that Palestinian jihadist groups such as Hamas provide monthly , Lump sum, and prestige to the families of suicide terrorists. Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker argues in The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) that because the families of men in the West Bank and Gaza Strip often cannot afford and that many potential brides end up in polygynous marriages, the financial compensation of an act of suicide terrorism can buy enough brides for a man's brothers to have children to make the self-sacrifice pay off in terms of kin selection and biological fitness.
Motivations vary greatly and are different in the case of each individual. Fanaticism (nationalist, religious, or both) may result from brain-washing, negative experiences regarding "the enemy", and the lack of a perspective in life. Suicide attackers may want to hurt or kill their targets because they hold them responsible for all bad things that have happened to them or in the world, or simply just because they want to escape misery and poverty.Artur Lakatos, "War, Martyrdom and Suicide Bombers: Essay on Suicide Terrorism", in Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology, Issue 14/2010, pp 171–180 Based on biographies of more than seven hundred foreign fighters uncovered at an Iraqi insurgent camp, researchers believe that the motivation for suicide missions at least in Iraq was not "the global jihadi ideology", but "an explosive mix of desperation, pride, anger, sense of powerlessness, local tradition of resistance, and religious fervor".
Criminal justice professor Adam Lankford argues that suicide terrorists are not psychologically normal or stable. They are motivated to suicide and killing to mask their desire to die beneath a "veneer of heroic action" because of the religious consequences of killing themselves outright. He has identified more than 130 individual suicide terrorists, including 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta, with classic suicidal risk factors such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, other mental health problems, drug addictions, serious physical injuries or disabilities, having suffered the unexpected death of a loved one, or other personal crises.
Alternately, another source found that in Lebanon from 1983 to 1999, it was Islamists who influenced secular nationalists. Their use of suicide attacks spread to the secular groups. Five Lebanese groups "espousing a non-religious nationalist ideology" followed the lead of Islamist groups in attacking by suicide, "impressed by the effectiveness of Hezbollah's attacks in precipitating the withdrawal of the 'foreigners' from Lebanon". In Israel suicide attacks by Islamist Islamic Jihad and Hamas also preceded those of the secular PFLP and the Al-Fatah-linked Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. However, the first suicide attack in post-independence Israel was in 1972, by foreign fighters from the Japanese Red Army (a secular militant group) allied to PFLP-EO unit (a secular group, led by Wadie Haddad).
Pape found other factors associated with suicide attacks. This included the government of the targeted country being democratic and the public opinion of the country playing a role in determining policy. He also found that a difference in religion between the attackers and occupiers, and (2025). 9788366675582, Walter de Gruyter GmbH. ISBN 9788366675582 grassroots support for the attacks contributed. Other factors include attackers being disproportionately from the educated middle classes, high levels of brutality and cruelty by the occupiers, and competition among militant groups fighting the occupiers.
Other researchers, such as Yotam Feldner, argue that perceived religious rewards after death are instrumental in encouraging Muslims to commit suicide attacks. These researchers contend that Pape's analysis is flawed, particularly his contention that democracies are the main targets of such attacks. Other scholars have criticized Pape's research design, arguing that it cannot draw any conclusions on the causes of suicide terrorism.
Atran argues that suicide bombing has moved on from the days of Pape's study, where non-Islamic groups have carried out very few bombings since 2003. Instead, bombing by Muslim or Islamist groups associated with a "global ideology" of "martyrdom" has skyrocketed. In 2004 in Iraq alone, there were 400 suicide attacks and 2,000 casualties. Other researchers question why prominent anti-occupation secular terrorist groups have not used suicide, such as the Provisional IRA, ETA, or Anti-imperialism insurgents in Vietnam, Algeria, and elsewhere. They also question Pape omits that the first suicide attack in Lebanon targeted the embassy of Iraq, a country that was not occupying Lebanon.
Mia Bloom agrees with Pape that competition among insurgents groups is a significant motivator, arguing the growth in suicide as a tactic is a product of "outbidding". That is, the need by competing insurgent groups to demonstrate their commitment to the cause to the broader public. This is achieved as making the ultimate sacrifice for the insurgency is a "bid" impossible to top.Bloom, Mia, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (2005), p.94-98 This explains its use by Palestinian groups, but not that by the Tamil Tigers. Still other researchers have identified sociopolitical factors as more central in the motivation of suicide attackers than religion.Galtung, Johan. "11 September 2001: Diagnosis, Prognosis, Therapy", In: Searching for peace – the road to TRANSCEND, Galtung, Johan, Jacobsen, Carl, Brand-Jacobsen, Kai, London: Pluto Press, 2002, pp. 87–102
According to Scott Atran, and former CIA case officer Marc Sageman, support for suicide actions is triggered by moral outrage at perceived attacks against Islam and sacred values. However, this is converted to action as a result of small-world factors, such as being part of a football club with other jihadis. Millions express sympathy with global jihad. According to a 2006 Gallup study involving more than 50,000 interviews in dozens of countries, seven percent of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims consider the 9/11 attacks "completely justified".An estimated 7–14% of Muslims worldwide (depending on the poll taken) supported the Al Qaeda strike against the United States.
Assaf Moghadam also argues that the increase in "suicide terrorism" since 2001 is driven by italics=no ideology and Al-Qaeda.
Updating his work in a 2010 book Cutting the Fuse, Pape reported that a close analysis of the time and location of attacks strongly support his conclusion that "foreign military occupation accounts for 98.5%—and the deployment of American combat forces for 92%—of all the 1,833 suicide terrorist attacks around the world" between 2004 and 2009. Pape wrote that, "the success attributed to the surge in 2007 and 2008 was actually less the result of an increase in coalition forces and more to a change of strategy in Baghdad and the empowerment of the Sunnis in Anbar".
The same logic can be seen in Afghanistan. In 2004 and early 2005, NATO occupied the north and west, which was controlled by the Northern Alliance, whom NATO had previously helped fight the Taliban. An enormous spike in suicide terrorism only occurred later in 2005 as NATO moved into the south and east, which had previously been controlled by the Taliban, and locals were more likely to see NATO as a foreign occupation threatening local culture and customs. Critics argue the logic cannot be seen in Pakistan, which has no occupation and the second highest number of suicide bombing fatalities as of mid-2015.
Since then, according to Noah Feldman, videotaped pre-confession of faith by attackers known as the "vocabulary of martyrdom and sacrifice" have become part of "Islamic cultural consciousness" and these confessions are "instantly recognizable" to Muslims. The tactic has spread through the Muslim world "with astonishing speed and on a surprising course". "First the targets were American soldiers, then mostly Israelis, including women and children. From Lebanon and Israel, the technique of suicide bombing moved to Iraq, where the targets have included mosques and shrines, and the intended victims have mostly been Shia Iraqi people. ... In Afghanistan, ... both the perpetrators and the targets are orthodox Sunni Muslims. Not long ago, a bombing in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province, killed Muslims, including women, who were applying to go on Hajj to Mecca. Overall, the trend is definitively in the direction of Muslim-on-Muslim violence. By a conservative accounting, more than three times as many Iraqis have been killed by suicide bombings in just three years (2003–6) as have Israelis in ten (from 1996 to 2006). Suicide bombing has become the archetype of Muslim violence;– not just to Westerners but also to Muslims themselves".
Recent research on the rationale of suicide bombing has identified both religious and sociopolitical motivations.
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Those who cite religious factors as an important influence note that religion provides the framework because the bombers believe they are acting in the name of Islam and will be rewarded as martyrs. Since martyrdom is seen as a step towards paradise, those who commit suicide while discarding their community from a common enemy believe that they will reach an ultimate salvation after they die.
In the media attention given to suicide bombing during the Second Intifada and after 9/11, sources hostile to radical Islamism quoted radical scholars promising various heavenly rewards, such as 70 virgins () as wives, to Muslims who die as martyrs, specifically as suicide attackers. Other alleged rewards for those dying are being cleansed of all sin and brought directly to paradise, and not having to wait for the Day of Judgement. (2025). 9781409476450, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. ISBN 9781409476450One scholar of history (Leor Halevi) suggests that suicide killers may be motivated by the idea that by dying while waging jihad they are transported directly to paradise, thus bypassing "the tortures of the grave" ("a state akin to the late Christian concept of purgatory").
Others, such as As'ad AbuKhalil, maintain that "the tendency to dwell on the sexual motives" of the suicide bombers "belittles" the bombers "sociopolitical causes", and that the alleged "sexual frustration" of young Muslim men "has been overly emphasized in the Western and Israeli media" as a motive for terrorism. Suicide is criminalised many in majority-Muslim countries (see above).
The articles maintains that Abu Huraira, a companion of the Muhammad, and Umar ibn Khattab, the second caliph of Islam, approved acts which Muslims knew would lead to certain death. The Islamic prophet Muhammad also approved of such acts, according to authors Maulana Muawiya Hussaini and Ikrimah Anwar who cited numerous Hadith of Muhammad on the authority of Islamic jurist Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj. "The Sahaba companions who carried out the attacks almost certainly knew that they were going to be killed during their operations but they still carried them out and such acts were extolled and praised in the sharia."
The distinction from engaging in an act where the perpetrator plans to fight to the death but where the attack does not require their death is important to at least one Islamist terror group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). While the group extols "martyrdom" and has killed many civilians, LeT believes suicide attacks where the attackers die by their own hand, such as by pressing a detonation button, are haram (forbidden). Its "trademark" is that of perpetrators fighting "to the death" but escaping "if practical". "This distinction has been the subject of extensive discourse among radical Islamist leaders".
Several Western and Muslim scholars of Islam have posited that suicide attacks are a clear violation of classical Islamic law, and characterized such attacks against civilians as murderous and sinful. Muslim scholar's fatwa condemns terrorism , Articles.cnn.com; retrieved August 19, 2012.Lewis, Bernard & Buntzie Ellis Churchill. "Islam: The Religion and the People" (p. 53), Wharton School Publishing, 2008.
According to Bernard Lewis, "the emergence of the now widespread terrorism practice of suicide bombing is a development of the 20th century. It has no antecedents in Islamic history, and no justification in terms of Islamic theology, law, or tradition." Islamic legal rules of armed warfare or military jihad are covered in detail in the classical texts of Islamic jurisprudence, which forbid the killing of women, children, or non-combatants, and the destruction of cultivated or residential areas.Bernard Lewis and Buntzie Ellis Churchill, Islam: The Religion and the People, Wharton School Publishing, 2008, pp. 145–53.Muhammad Hamidullah, The Muslim Conduct of State (Ashraf Printing Press (1987); , pp. 205–08
For more than a millennium, these tenets were accepted by Sunnis and Shiites. However, since the 1980s militant Islamists have challenged the traditional Islamic rules of warfare to justify suicide attacks.
Several respected Muslim scholars have provided scholastic refutations of suicide bombings, condemning them as terrorism prohibited in Islam and leading their perpetrators to hell. In his over 400 page long Fatwa on Terrorism condemning suicide attacks, Muslim Islamic scholar Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri directly disputed the rationale of Islamists. He argues that indiscriminately killing both Muslims and non-Muslims is unlawful, and brings the Muslim ummah into disrepute, no matter how lofty the killers intentions. Tahir-ul-Qadri states terrorism "has no place in Islamic teaching, and no justification can be provided to it ... good intention cannot justify a wrong and forbidden act".
Grand Mufti Saudi Arabia , Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al Shaykh, issued a fatwa on 12 September 2013 that suicide bombings are "great crimes" and bombers are "criminals who rush themselves to hell by their actions". Al Shaykh described suicide bombers as "robbed of their minds ... who have been used as to destroy themselves and societies". "In view of the fast-moving dangerous developments in the Islamic world, it is very distressing to see the tendencies of permitting or underestimating the shedding of blood of Muslims and those under protection in their countries. The sectarian or ignorant utterances made by some of these people would benefit none other than the greedy, vindictive and envious people. Hence, we would like to draw attention to the seriousness of the attacks on Muslims or those who live under their protection or under a pact with them|Al Shaykh, quoting a number of verses from the Qur'an and Hadith". Even countries that have a history of suicide attacks, and have regarded them as martyrdom, have condemned them in situations they see as illegitimate.
Following the 2005 Bangladesh bombings by the banned outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), chief cleric of Bangladesh Ubaidul Haq led a protest of ulema denouncing terrorism. He said: "Islam prohibits suicide bombings. These bombers are enemies of Islam. ... It is a duty for all Muslims to stand up against those who are killing people in the name of Islam".
In January 2006, italics=no (high ranking cleric) Yousef Sanei decreed a fatwa against suicide bombing, declaring it a "terrorist act". In 2005, Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti also issued a fatwa "Against The Targeting Of Civilians". Defending the Transgressed Fatwa against suicide bombing by Shaykh Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti; accessed 22 March 2015.
Ihsanic Intelligence, a London-based Islamic think-tank, published their two-year study into suicide bombings in the name of Islam titled The Hijacked Caravan. The Hijacked Caravan , ihsanic-intelligence.com; retrieved August 19, 2012. The study concluded that, "The technique of suicide bombing is anathema, antithetical and abhorrent to Sunni Islam. It is considered legally forbidden, constituting a reprehensible innovation in the Islamic tradition, morally an enormity of sin combining suicide and murder and theologically an act which has consequences of eternal damnation". The Hijacked Caravan: Refuting Suicide Bombings as Martyrdom Operations in Contemporary Jihad Strategy , Mac.abc.se; retrieved August 19, 2012.
American based Islamic jurist and scholar Khaled Abou Al-Fadl argues, "The classical jurists, nearly without exception, argued that those who attack by stealth, while targeting noncombatants in order to terrorize the resident and wayfarer, are corrupters of the earth. "Resident and wayfarer" was a legal expression that meant that whether the attackers terrorize people in their urban centers or terrorize travelers, the result was the same: all such attacks constitute a corruption of the earth. The legal term given to people who act this way was muharibun (those who wage war against society), and the crime is called the crime of hiraba (waging war against society). The crime of hiraba was so serious and repugnant that, according to Islamic law, those guilty of this crime were considered enemies of humankind and were not to be given quarter or sanctuary anywhere .... Those who are familiar with the classical tradition will find the parallels between what were described as crimes of hiraba and what is often called terrorism today nothing short of remarkable. The classical jurists considered crimes such as assassinations, setting fires, or poisoning water wells – that could indiscriminately kill the innocent – as offenses of hiraba. Furthermore, hijacking methods of transportation or crucifying people in order to spread fear are also crimes of hiraba. Importantly, Islamic law strictly prohibited the taking of hostages, the mutilation of corpses, and torture".Khaled Abou Al-Fadl: The Great Theft. Wrestling Islam from the Extremists, HarperCollins, p. 243 (2005); .
According to When Religion Becomes Evil, by Baptist minister Charles Kimball, "There is only one verse in the Qur'an that contains a phrase related to suicide" (4:29). " you who have believed, do not consume one another's wealth unjustly but only in business by mutual consent. And do not kill yourselves. Indeed, Allah is to you ever Merciful".
Some commentators posit that "do not kill yourselves" is better translated "do not kill each other", and some translations, such as those by M. H. Shakir, reflect that view. Mainstream Islamic groups such as the European Council for Fatwa and Research also cite the Quranic verse Al-An'am 6:151) as prohibiting suicide: "And take not life, which Allah has made sacred, except by way of justice and law". The Hadith, including Bukhari 2:445, states: "The Prophet said, '...whoever commits suicide with a piece of iron will be punished with the same piece of iron in the Hell Fire', and 'A man was inflicted with wounds and he committed suicide, and so Allah said: 'My slave has caused death on himself hurriedly, so I forbid Paradise for him'". Hadith 2:445, sacred-texts.com; retrieved August 19, 2012.Adil Salahi Committing Suicide Is Strictly Forbidden in Islam, Aljazeerah.info, June 22, 2004; retrieved August 19, 2012.
Other Muslims have also noted Quranic verses in opposition to suicide, to taking of life other than by way of justice such as the death penalty for murder, and to collective punishment.url: islam.about DOT com/cs/currentevents/a/suicide_bomb.htm Suicide Bombers – Why do they do it, and what does Islam say about their actions? – Webarchive: web.archive.org/web/20040731083315/http://islam.about DOT com/cs/currentevents/a/suicide_bomb.htm date: 2004-07-31; accessed 22 March 2015
The international community considers the use of indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations as illegal under international law.
There was a heated dispute surrounding the death penalty trial of the Irgun militant who suicide mission in 1947 (see above). He was sentenced to death alongside another militant for their role in the , but the other militant later had his sentence commuted to life in prison. There was heated debate about the age of the Irgun suicide militant when he was sentenced. His mother and brother claimed he was 17, too young to be executed according to the law of the British authorities. The court claimed he was 23, because he had served in the British military during World War II, and the British refused to believe they had recruited a minor who was lying about his age. Yehuda Lapidot and the IDF say he was born on 5 October 1927. Surviving relatives disagree, maintaining that he was born in July 1929.
Mohammed Hossein Fahmideh, a 13-year-old Iranian boy who fought in the Iran–Iraq War, is said – by former CIA operative Robert Baer – to be the first Muslim to have participated in such an attack in contemporary history. The boy strapped rocket-propelled grenades to his chest and blew himself up under an Iraqi tank in November 1980. A near identical tactic was used by Chinese Nationalists in the 1930s and 1940s (see above). Ayatollah Khomeini declared Fahmideh a national hero. According to Robert Baer, the boy was used as an inspiration for further volunteers for martyrdom. The Iranian website, Tebyan Cultural Institute describes the child's death as heroic. According to former CIA officer Robert Baer, "Ayatollah Khomeini's embattled Islamic republic adopted Fahmideh as a national hero and as an inspiration for further bloodshed and martyrdom".
In Lebanon on 9 April 1985, Sana'a Mehaidli, a 16-year-old member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), detonated an explosive-laden vehicle that killed two Israeli soldiers and injured twelve more. She is often described as the first female suicide bomber. She is known as "the Bride of the South". During the Lebanese Civil War, female SSNP members bombed Israeli troops and the Israeli proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army.
A major reason for the popularity of suicide attacks, despite the sacrifice involved for its perpetrators, is its tactical advantages over other types of terrorism such as the ability to conceal weapons, make last-minute adjustments, an increased ability to infiltrate heavily guarded targets, and the lack of need for remote or delayed detonation, escape plans or rescue teams. Robert Pape observed that "Suicide attacks are an especially convincing way to signal the likelihood of more pain to come, because if you are willing to kill yourself you are also willing to endure brutal retaliation. ... The element of suicide itself helps increase the credibility of future attacks because it suggests that attackers cannot be deterred". Other scholars have criticized Pape's research design, arguing that it cannot draw any conclusions on the efficacy of suicide terrorism.
Bruce Hoffman described the characteristics of suicide bombing as "universal" — "Suicide bombings are inexpensive and effective. They are less complicated and compromising than other kinds of terrorist operations. They guarantee media coverage. The suicide terrorist is the ultimate smart bomb. Perhaps most important, coldly efficient bombings tear at the fabric of trust that holds societies together".
— Hebrew Wikipedia page about the speech:
– Note: the Hebrew word used is "Shahid", which is derived from the Arabic word "Shaheed", meaning martyr, but which is not generally used to refer to Jewish martyrs. It has connotations of terrorism in Modern Hebrew.
Independently published in 2021: .
(Author name in ) Machine translated quote: The IDF strictened the "Hannibal" procedure and instructed the soldiers to prevent a case of "Gilad Shalit 2" at all costs. In other words: if you are a soldier and they try to kidnap you, you must resist. Won't you? () You must commit suicide and take as many Hamas fighters with you as possible (the battalion commander from Golani () recommends the use of a grenade) ... If this is the mindset, why not take the "Hannibal" procedure and upgrade it a little further and turn it into the "Shimshon" procedure? Why wait for kidnappers to come when it is possible to take the soldiers and send them straight to commit suicide, in the sense of dying with the Philistines, and closing the matter.
"Of course, we needed the condemned men's approval," (the Lehi veteran) recalls. "Moshe agreed right away, but since there was an Irgun man with him we had to request their approval, too. We asked the person responsible for Irgun prisoners in the jail, Eliyahu Tamler, what he thought, and he said they needed the consent of the top command. We had to wait a few days, despite fearing that they would be taken to the gallows in the meantime, until approval arrived from the commander of the Irgun, Menachem Begin."
(Note, this is an English version, not a direct translation of the story in Hebrew edition)
— Note: The name is , and the acronym is with the letters Aleph–Bet–Kaph, which stands for "atomic, biological, and chemical".
(Note: "today in history" refers to the anniversary in the Hebrew calendar) Quote:
: "During 2000–2004, there were 472 suicide attacks in 22 countries, killing more than 7,000 and wounding tens of thousands. Most have been carried out by Islamist groups claiming religious motivation, also known as jihadis. Rand Corp. vice president and terrorism analyst Bruce Hoffman has found that 80 percent of suicide attacks since 1968 occurred after the September 11 attacks, with jihadis representing 31 of the 35 responsible groups".
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(2025). 9781414323619, Tyndale House Publishers. ISBN 9781414323619 –
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