A suicide attack is an attack intended to kill others and inflict widespread damage in the knowledge that oneself will die in the process. This article is concerned with two particular instances of suicide attacks, namely the tactics employed by the Kamikaze and modern instances of suicide tactics and suicide terrorism.
Suicide Attack tactics
Historical examples
In the late 17th century, Qing official Yu Yonghe recorded that injured Dutch soldiers fighting against Koxinga's forces for control of Taiwan in 1661 would use gunpowder to blow up both themselves and their opponents rather than be taken prisoner.
During the Belgian Revolution, the Dutch Lieutenant Jan van Speijk detonated his own ship in the harbour of Antwerp to prevent being captured by the Belgians.
Another example was the Prussian soldier Karl Klinke on 18 April 1864 at the Battle of Dybbøl, when he blew a hole in a Danish fortification.
Modern suicide bombing as a political tool can be traced back to the assassination of Czar Alexander II of Russia in 1881. Alexander fell victim to a Nihilist plot. While driving on one of the central streets of Saint Petersburg, near the Winter Palace, he was mortally wounded by the explosion of hand-made grenades and died a few hours afterwards. The Tzar was killed by a member of Narodnaya Volya, Ignacy Hryniewiecki, who died while intentionally exploding the bomb during the attack.
Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff intended to assassinate Adolf Hitler by suicide bomb in 1943, but was unable to complete the attack.
During the Battle for Berlin the Luftwaffe flew "Self-sacrifice missions" (Selbstopfereinsatz) against Soviet bridges over the River Oder. These 'total missions' were flown by pilots of the Leonidas Squadron under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Heiner Lange. From 17 April until 20 April 1945, using any aircraft that were available, the Luftwaffe claimed that the squadron destroyed 17 bridges, however the military historian Antony Beevor when writing about the incident thinks that this was exaggerated and that 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.
Following World War II, Viet Minh "death volunteers" fought against the French colonial army by using a long stick-like explosive to destroy French tanks.
Suicide terrorism and suicide bombing
Suicide terrorism is a problematic term to define. There is an ongoing debate on definitions of terrorism itself. Kofi Annan, as Secretary General of the UN, defined terrorism in March 2005 in the General Assembly as any action "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants" for the purpose of intimidation. This definition would distinguish suicide terrorism from suicide bombing in that suicide bombing does not necessarily target non-combatants. However this definition is not widely accepted.
For example, Jason Burke, a journalist who has lived among Islamic militants himself, whilst preferring the term 'militancy' to 'terrorism', suggests that most define terrorism as 'the use or threat of serious violence' to advance some kind of 'cause', and stresses that terrorism is a tactic, and Burke leaves the target of such actions out of the definition, although he is also clear in calling suicide bombings 'abhorrent'. Halliday meanwhile draws attention to the fact 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', although similar to Burke does not define terrorism in terms of the militance of the victim as did Kofi Annan His preferred approach is to focus on the specific aspects within terrorism that we can study without using the concept itself, laden as it is with 'such distortion and myth'. This means focusing on the specific components of 'terror' and 'political violence' within terrorism .
With awareness of that debate in mind, suicide terrorism itself has been defined as ' a diversity of violent actions perpetrated by people who are aware that the odds they will return alive are close to zero'. This captures suicide bombing, and the range of suicide tactics below
Types of suicide tactic
* Suicide attack on foot: explosive belt, satchel charge
* Attempted suicide attack with a plane as target: Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63
* Suicide car bomb: 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, Sri Lankan Central Bank bombing, numerous incidents in Iraq since 2003
* Suicide attack by a boat with explosives: USS Cole bombing, attacks in Sri Lanka by the LTTE Sea Tigers.
* Suicide attack by a submarine with explosives (human-steered torpedo): Kaiten, used by Japan in World War II
* Suicide attack by donkey: Donkey bombs were a speciality of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru.[25]
* Suicide attack by a woman (Thenmuli Rajaratnam) wearing a belt with explosives or a bra bomb : Assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
* Suicide attack by a bicycle with explosives: Assassination of Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
* Suicide attack by a hijacked plane with fuel: September 11, 2001 attacks, possibly Air France Flight 8969 and attempted by Samuel Byck
* Suicide attack by diverting a bus to an abyss: Tel Aviv Jerusalem bus 405 massacre
* Suicide attack with guns: Kashmiri insurgents on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 killing 15 people.
After the 1983 truck bombing of two barracks buildings in Beirut that killed 300 and helped drive American and French Multinational Force troops from Lebanon, the tactic spread to insurgent groups like the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, and Islamist groups such as Hamas.
Suicide Attack tactics
Historical examples
In the late 17th century, Qing official Yu Yonghe recorded that injured Dutch soldiers fighting against Koxinga's forces for control of Taiwan in 1661 would use gunpowder to blow up both themselves and their opponents rather than be taken prisoner.
During the Belgian Revolution, the Dutch Lieutenant Jan van Speijk detonated his own ship in the harbour of Antwerp to prevent being captured by the Belgians.
Another example was the Prussian soldier Karl Klinke on 18 April 1864 at the Battle of Dybbøl, when he blew a hole in a Danish fortification.
Modern suicide bombing as a political tool can be traced back to the assassination of Czar Alexander II of Russia in 1881. Alexander fell victim to a Nihilist plot. While driving on one of the central streets of Saint Petersburg, near the Winter Palace, he was mortally wounded by the explosion of hand-made grenades and died a few hours afterwards. The Tzar was killed by a member of Narodnaya Volya, Ignacy Hryniewiecki, who died while intentionally exploding the bomb during the attack.
Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff intended to assassinate Adolf Hitler by suicide bomb in 1943, but was unable to complete the attack.
During the Battle for Berlin the Luftwaffe flew "Self-sacrifice missions" (Selbstopfereinsatz) against Soviet bridges over the River Oder. These 'total missions' were flown by pilots of the Leonidas Squadron under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Heiner Lange. From 17 April until 20 April 1945, using any aircraft that were available, the Luftwaffe claimed that the squadron destroyed 17 bridges, however the military historian Antony Beevor when writing about the incident thinks that this was exaggerated and that 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.
Following World War II, Viet Minh "death volunteers" fought against the French colonial army by using a long stick-like explosive to destroy French tanks.
Suicide terrorism and suicide bombing
Suicide terrorism is a problematic term to define. There is an ongoing debate on definitions of terrorism itself. Kofi Annan, as Secretary General of the UN, defined terrorism in March 2005 in the General Assembly as any action "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants" for the purpose of intimidation. This definition would distinguish suicide terrorism from suicide bombing in that suicide bombing does not necessarily target non-combatants. However this definition is not widely accepted.
For example, Jason Burke, a journalist who has lived among Islamic militants himself, whilst preferring the term 'militancy' to 'terrorism', suggests that most define terrorism as 'the use or threat of serious violence' to advance some kind of 'cause', and stresses that terrorism is a tactic, and Burke leaves the target of such actions out of the definition, although he is also clear in calling suicide bombings 'abhorrent'. Halliday meanwhile draws attention to the fact 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', although similar to Burke does not define terrorism in terms of the militance of the victim as did Kofi Annan His preferred approach is to focus on the specific aspects within terrorism that we can study without using the concept itself, laden as it is with 'such distortion and myth'. This means focusing on the specific components of 'terror' and 'political violence' within terrorism .
With awareness of that debate in mind, suicide terrorism itself has been defined as ' a diversity of violent actions perpetrated by people who are aware that the odds they will return alive are close to zero'. This captures suicide bombing, and the range of suicide tactics below
Types of suicide tactic
* Suicide attack on foot: explosive belt, satchel charge
* Attempted suicide attack with a plane as target: Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63
* Suicide car bomb: 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, Sri Lankan Central Bank bombing, numerous incidents in Iraq since 2003
* Suicide attack by a boat with explosives: USS Cole bombing, attacks in Sri Lanka by the LTTE Sea Tigers.
* Suicide attack by a submarine with explosives (human-steered torpedo): Kaiten, used by Japan in World War II
* Suicide attack by donkey: Donkey bombs were a speciality of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru.[25]
* Suicide attack by a woman (Thenmuli Rajaratnam) wearing a belt with explosives or a bra bomb : Assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
* Suicide attack by a bicycle with explosives: Assassination of Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
* Suicide attack by a hijacked plane with fuel: September 11, 2001 attacks, possibly Air France Flight 8969 and attempted by Samuel Byck
* Suicide attack by diverting a bus to an abyss: Tel Aviv Jerusalem bus 405 massacre
* Suicide attack with guns: Kashmiri insurgents on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 killing 15 people.
After the 1983 truck bombing of two barracks buildings in Beirut that killed 300 and helped drive American and French Multinational Force troops from Lebanon, the tactic spread to insurgent groups like the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, and Islamist groups such as Hamas.
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