Life as a Weapon:
Making Sense of Suicide Bombings
Riaz Hassan
Institute of South Asian Studies
National University of Singapore
7 September 2012
 Nature of the Phenomenon and its
Historical Roots
 Analysis of Global Trends
 Explanatory Paradigms
 Lessons from my Research
 Suicide Bombing emblematic of
Modern Wave of Global Terrorism
1980 Previous Global Waves:
-Anarchist (1880-1910)
-Anti-Colonial (1920-50)
-New Left (1960s)
Suicide and Suicide Bombings
 What drives human to suicide?
 In sociology and psychiatry suicide viewed
as an END- Exist from intolerable personal
pain and adverse social conditions
 Suicide NOT an END but a MEANS to
achieve multiple ends:
 Self empowerment in the face of
powerlessness
 Redemption in the face of damnation
 Honour in the face of humiliation
Suicide Bombings: Modern
Phenomenon with Ancient Roots
 Use of life/suicide mission as proactive and
empowering political act and not a
resolution of personal crisis.
 Selected Historical Examples
 Cato’s Suicide
 Crucifixion death of Jesus Christ
 Jewish Zealots and Sicarii
 Order of Assassins
 Japanese Kamikaze Pilots
Japanese tradition of political and
military sacrifice
 Kamikaze suicide missions
operated for ten months, from 25
October 1944, until Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945. In all
some 3,843 pilots gave their lives. Most were young, well-educated
men who understood that pursuing conventional warfare would
likely end in defeat. These suicides attacks did not stop the
Americans, but they were four to five times more deadly than
conventional strike missions and imposed high costs on the invasion
forces. In the battle of Okinawa (April 1945) two hundred kamikaze
rammed fully fuelled fighter planes into more than three hundred
ships, killing five thousand Americans in the most costly naval
battle in US history. Japanese officials regarded kamikaze pilots
not suicide but as human bombs for their country and comrades.
 These cases are illustrations of my thesis that under certain
circumstances the act of – suicide – is a means of achieving
multiple ends. They show the instrumental use of life itself as a
weapon. These acts were means to communicate valued ideals to
the wider community and to inflict physical and/or symbolic pain
and loss on the opponent. In all these cases, as is also true in the
case of suicide bombing, the actions of the actors are seen by their
reference group as rational and altruistic. In this respect these deeds
belong to a family of actions in human society that include religious
martyrdom, self-immolation, hunger strikes and war heroism, in
which people go to extremes of self-sacrifice in the belief that by
doing so they are furthering the interests of their group or the cause
they value and strongly identify with.
Global Trends 1981-2011
 2297 Suicide Bombings Attacks
which killed 29951 people in 36
Countries
 Suicide Bombings are 4 % of all
terrorist attacks but accounted for 32 %
all terrorist fatalities
Global Trends: Worldwide
Incidence of Suicide Attacks
Incidence of Suicide Attacks in
South Asia,1981-2011
Country
Total suicide
attacks
Total death from
suicide attacks
Deaths per
attack
World
2297
29951
13
Iraq
979
12768
13.1
Afghanistan
545
3604
6.6
India
13
102
7.8
Pakistan
277
4186
15.1
Sri Lanka
107
1544
14.4
Deaths from Suicide Attacks and
All Forms of Terrorism*
Year
All
terrorist
attacks
(n)**
Suicide
attacks
(n)**
19812006
29655
1200
Suicide Deaths Deaths Deaths
attacks from all
from
from
as % of terrorist suicide suicide
all
attacks attacks* attacks
terrorist (n)**
(n)**
as % of
attacks
all
deaths
Source: MIPT database (www.tkb.org) and
FUSTD (2008). Data for 1981-2006
*‘Deaths from suicide attacks’ refers to the
minimum number killed.
**n = Number
4
45816
14599
32
Lethality of Suicide Attacks*
Year
1981-2006
Average
yearly
suicide
attacks
Deaths per
suicide
attack*
46
12
Source: MIPT database (www.tkb.org) and
FUSTD (2008)
*‘Deaths from suicide attacks’ refers to the
minimum number killed
Average
Deaths per
yearly non- non-suicide
suicide
terrorist
terrorist
attack
attack
1094
1.1
Suicide Bombing Deaths, Selected
Countries, 1981-2006
Country****
As % of
all
terrorist
attacks*
Suicide
Suicide
As % of all bombing
bombings/all
terrorism deaths/all
terrorist
deaths** terrorism
attacks
deaths
Deaths per
suicide
Ratio***
bombing
Iraq
9
651/7400
31
5767/18865
9
01:04.5
Israel/Palestine
7
217/3167
61
1016/1664
5
01:22.3
Lebanon
9
48/540
69
802/1162
17
01:22.9
Chechnya/Russ
ia
4
28/792
37
660/1791
24
01:14.4
Pakistan
5
49/952
38
680/1784
14
01:11.4
Afghanistan
4
35/962
13
198/1582
6
01:04.1
Source: MIPT database (www.tkb.org) and FUSTD (2008)
*
Suicide bombing as a percentage of all terrorist attacks.
**
Deaths from suicide bombing as % of all terrorism related deaths.
***
Ratio of average deaths from non-suicide bombing terrorism to average
deaths from suicide bombing.
****
Sri Lanka was omitted because the lack of data on ‘all terrorist’ attacks
Targets of Suicide Bombings,
Selected Countries,1981-2006
Targets
Middle
East
South Asia
Israel/
Lebanon Sri Lanka Pakistan Afghanistan
Palestine
Global
Iraq
11
13
5
6
12
–
3
45
50
29
42
69
44
38
9
11
1
46
–
9
12
Civilians
30
21
63
6
12
24
24
Others
5
4
2
0
8
24
24
Total
100
100
100
100
101*
101*
101*
Infrastructure
Local
Security
/Public
officials
Foreign
forces/
contractors
Types of Suicide Bombings,
Selected Countries,1981-2006
South
Asia
Middle East
Weapon
Global
Iraq
Sri
Israel/Palestine Lebanon Lanka Pakistan Afghanistan
SVA
56
72
19
90
43
20
37
SBA
40
28
66
10
46
77
57
Others*
4
0.4
15
0
11
3
7
100
100.4**
100
100
100
100
101**
Total
Source: FUSTD (2008)
*
Others include conflicting reports
**
Percentages rounded up.
SVA = Suicide Vehicular Attack
SBA = Suicide Belt/Bag Attack
Explaining Suicide Bombing

Personal Characteristics/Motivations
of Perpetrator

Terrorist Organizations

Societal Conditions
Personal Characteristics/Motivations
of Perpetrator




Perceptions of Suicide and Terrorism
-Suicide - Psychopathological Behaviour
-Terrorism – Criminal Violence
Suicide Bombers
-Psychopaths/paranoid personality
-Sociopaths
-Religious Fanatics
-Uneducated
-Poor
Neither Rational or Reasonable
Public Policies
-Killing, restraining, incarcerating deranged individuals in order to
remove them from society
Terrorist Organizations
 Weaker party in asymmetrical conflicts between state and non-state
actors
 Strategic Weapon
-Comparatively lethal
-Mechanically simple/cheap
-Versatile and tactically efficient in reaching well-guarded targets
-High symbolic value – signalling resolve and dedication
-Mobilise support from sympathetic constituencies.
 Paying off Terrorist Organizations
-Coercing adversary to make concessions
-Giving organization advantage over rivals
 Public Policies
-Targeted killing of leaders (mutation of terrorist organization)
-Altruistic punishments
Societal Conditions
 Oppressive occupation of “homeland” by
powerful enemy.
 Violations of cultural codes of Honour/
Shame
 Humiliation
 Revenge/Retaliation
 Altruistic sacrifice for honorable survival of
self-community
 Public policies
-Conditions of refugee camps
-Treatment of prisoners
Five Case Studies
 Iraq
 Palestine/Israel
 Afghanistan
 Pakistan
 Sri Lanka
Lessons
Genesis of Suicide Bombings
 Intractable political conflicts over political
entitlements, territorial occupation,
dispossession
 State sanctioned violence/ repression against
non-state/weaker party causing widespread
outrage
 Large scale population dislocations /refugee
camps
 Incarceration of dissidents/ insurgents/
dehumanizing treatment
 Psychological operations/mutual
demonization
Suicide Bombers are not mad
 Studies have failed to find a stable set of demographic,
psychological and socioeconomic variables that can be
causally linked to suicide bombers’ personalities or
socioeconomic origins.
 No apparent connection between violent militant activity
and personality disorders.
 Becoming suicide bombers is a highly selective process
which acts as a screening device to exclude
psychopathological individuals as groups recruit members
whose behavior appears normal.
 Most suicide bombers are psychologically normal, deeply
integrated into social networks and emotionally attached to
their national communities.
A Strategic weapon/tactic
 Instrumental and strategic weapon used by well organized
terrorist groups representing weaker party in asymmetrical
conflicts related to struggle for greater autonomy or
liberation of homeland.
 Deployment determined by cost effectiveness, versatility,
lethality and tactical efficiency in reaching high value
targets.
 High symbolic value due to the willingness of perpetrators
to die as symbols of a just struggle, galvanize financial
support and inspire new recruits.
 Serve interests of sponsoring organization by coercing
adversaries to make concessions and by giving the
organization advantage over its rival in terms of support
from constituencies.
Driven mainly by politics not
religion
 Used in political conflicts over political entitlements,




dispossession and territorial occupation.
Weapon of last resort by sponsoring organizations after
long protests, political agitation and other forms of non
violent methods have failed.
In some cases religion can play a vital role in recruiting and
motivating future suicide bombers, particularly when
secular ideologies fail to bring about desired change.
Sometimes religious differences fuel the conflict but
invariably in the context of a desire for honorable survival
of the political community.
Between 1981-2003; 43% were by religious organizations
while 53% were by political/secular organizations
Driven mainly by politics not
religion
 Participation in suicide missions has multiple purposes:
-Gaining community approval, personal redemption and
honor for survival of community.
-Political success
-Liberation of home land
-Signals unwillingness to subjugation
-Revenge, guilt, shame and for personal and collective
humiliation
-Acts of religious or nationalistic convictions
-Material or religious rewards
-Escape from daily degradations of life under occupation,
boredom, anxiety and defiance.
Humiliation aids sub-culture of
suicide bombing
 Humiliation: an intense personal and emotional experience
arising from destructions of culturally grounded definitions
of self worth and dignity
 Means of inflicting humiliations
-Violence, torture
-Daily degradations of occupations
-Sense of collective grievances
-Repression, violation of accepted codes of honor and
shame
-Massive economic and social dislocations
-Anxiety and helplessness are powerful means of inflecting
humiliations
Humiliation aids sub-culture of
suicide bombing
 Humiliation is a potent technique of social control. Modern
intuitions play important role in production of humiliation.
 Fear is instinctive response to potential danger, humiliation
is an emotional process to lower self worth and respect of
the humiliated.
-Example: Abu Ghraib techniques-forced nudity, simulated
sex with another man in front of a female, not intended to
inflict physical pain but to create submission and
obedience. These practices worked on what it meant to be
an honorable, self respecting subject in Iraqi society. The
prison practices were designed to make the subject feel
unworthy and transform this feeling into total obedience to
humiliating authority.
Sometimes driven by revenge and
retaliation
 Revenge is infliction of harm in return for perceived injury. Desire for




revenge and willingness to carry out violence are tied to self worth of
the offended person and to deterrent role against future injustices.
Revenge fulfills many goals including righting perceived injustices, a
response to continuous suffering of an aggrieved community.
Important element of desire for revenge is willingness to sacrifice in
order to carry out act of revenge.
Motivations of vengeful act actions have a strong altruistic component
which manifests itself in the act of self sacrifice for the sake of one’s
family, community or ideology.
Personal motivation for revenge is very common aspect of human
nature.
-According to Hanna Arendt to resort to violence when confronted
with outrageous events or conditions is enormously tempting because
of its inherent immediacy and swiftness.. acting without arguments or
speech and without counting the consequences –is the only way to set
the scale of justice right again.
Altruistically driven action
 In Durkheim’s conceptual map, suicide bombings will fall
into category of altruistic suicide. Altruistic suicides
involve valuing one’s life less worthy than group’s honor,
religion or some other collective interest.
 In its essence altruism is a costly action that benefits others.
It is fundamental condition explaining human cooperation
for organization of society and its cohesiveness.
 From sociological and economic perspectives, suicide
bombings can be linked to altruism as a form of
intergenerational investment in which the agent gives up
current consumption for the sake of enhancing the
betterment of the descendants.
 Altruism is not antithetical to aggression. In war soldiers
perform altruistic actions by risking their lives for
comrades and country.
 Actions of Japanese kamikaze pilots in World War 11
 In communities undergoing massive social and economic
dislocations because of endemic and violent conflicts with
a more powerful enemy altruism rises and people react by
valuing and supporting ides of self sacrifice such as suicide
bombings
 Shafiqa, an incarcerated failed Palestinian suicide bomber
in Israel, did not detonate her device after seeing “a woman
with a little baby in her carriage. And I thought, why do I
have to do this to that woman and her child?... I won’t be
doing something good for Allah. I thought about the people
who loved me and about the innocent people in the
street…It was a very difficult moment for me.”
 Are suicide bombers mindless or mindful killers?
As Stanford University psychologist Philip Zimbardo puts
it, “It is neither mindless nor senseless, only a very different
mind-set and with different sensibilities than we have been
used to witnessing among young adults in most countries.”
Altruistic Punishment
• Suicide bombings invariably provoke a brutal response
from authorities.
• By injecting fear and mayhem into ordinary rhythms of
daily life, such bombings undermine the state’s authority in
providing security and maintaining social order.
• State can legitimately impose altruistic punishments to
deter future violation threatening security and social order.
These include punishments meted out to perpetrators and
their supporters. The state-sanctioned military actions
against the Palestinians, Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers, Iraqi
insurgents and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan are
examples of these punishments.
•
•
Altruistic punishments are only effective when they do
not violate the norms of fairness. Punishments and
sanctions seen as unfair, hostile, selfish and vindictive by
targeted groups tend to have detrimental effects. Instead
of promoting compliance, they reinforce recipients’
resolve to non-compliance.
Counter-insurgency operations are aimed at increasing the
cost of insurgency to the insurgents, and invariably
involve eliminating leaders and supporters who plan
suicide bombings, destroying insurgents’ capabilities for
mounting future attacks, and restrictions on mobility and
other violations of civil liberties.
Countering suicide terrorism
 Killing and incarcerating the perpetrators
 Targeted killing of terrorist leaders- Israeli and US polices
 Suicide bombings are carried out by community based
organizations. Strategies aimed at findings ways to induce
communities to abandon such support may isolate terrorist
organizations and curtail their activities.
 Strategies addressing and lessening the grievances and
humiliation of populations that give rise to suicide attacks
are required for their elimination. Support for suicide
bombings attacks is unlikely to diminish without tangible
progress in achieving at least some of the fundamental
goals that suicide bombers and those sponsoring them and
supporting them share
Thank You