New York Times
July 9, 2005
Al Qaeda's Smart Bombs
By ROBERT A. PAPE
Chicago
WHILE we don't yet know who organized the terrorist attacks in London on Thursday, it
seems likely that they were the latest in a series of bombings, most of them suicide
attacks, over the past several years by Al Qaeda and its supporters. Although many
Americans had hoped that Al Qaeda has been badly weakened by American
counterterrorism efforts since Sept. 11, 2001, the facts indicate otherwise. Since 2002, Al
Qaeda has been involved in at least 17 bombings that killed more than 700 people - more
attacks and victims than in all the years before 9/11 combined.
To make sense of this campaign, I compiled data on the 71 terrorists who killed
themselves between 1995 and 2004 in carrying out attacks sponsored by Osama bin
Laden's network. I was able to collect the names, nationalities and detailed demographic
information on 67 of these bombers, data that provides insight into the underlying causes
of Al Qaeda's suicide terrorism and how the group's strategy has evolved since 2001.
Most important, the figures show that Al Qaeda is today less a product of Islamic
fundamentalism than of a simple strategic goal: to compel the United States and its
Western allies to withdraw combat forces from the Arabian Peninsula and other Muslim
countries. As the Chart below shows, the overwhelming majority of attackers are citizens
of Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries in which the United States has stationed
combat troops since 1990. Of the other suicide terrorists, most came from America's
closest allies in the Muslim world - Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia and Morocco rather than from those the State Department considers "state sponsors of terrorism" like
Iran, Libya, Sudan and Iraq. Afghanistan produced Qaeda suicide terrorists only after the
American-led invasion of the country in 2001. The clear implication is that if Al Qaeda
was no longer able to draw recruits from the Muslim countries where there is a heavy
American combat presence, it might well collapse.
As the chart below shows, what is common among the attacks is not their location but the
identity of the victims killed. Since 2002, the group has killed citizens from 18 of the 20
countries that Osama bin Laden has cited as supporting the American invasions of
Afghanistan and Iraq.
There is good evidence that this shift in Al Qaeda's scheme was the product of deliberate
choice. In December 2003, the Norwegian intelligence service found a lengthy Qaeda
planning document on a radical Islamic Web site that described a coherent strategy for
compelling the United States and its allies to leave Iraq. It made clear that more
spectacular attacks against the United States like those of 9/11 would be insufficient, and
that it would be more effective to attack America's European allies, thus coercing them to
withdraw their forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and increasing the economic and
military burdens that the United States would have to bear.
In particular, the document weighed the advantages of attacking Britain, Poland and
Spain, and concluded that Spain in particular, because of the high level of domestic
opposition to the Iraq war, was the most vulnerable.
"It is necessary to make utmost use of the upcoming general election in Spain in March
next year," the document stated. "We think that the Spanish government could not
tolerate more than two, maximum three, blows, after which it will have to withdraw as a
result of popular pressure. If its troops still remain in Iraq after these blows, then the
victory of the Socialist Party is almost secured, and the withdrawal of the Spanish forces
will be on its electoral program."
That prediction, of course, proved murderously prescient. Yet it was only one step in the
plan: "Lastly, we emphasize that a withdrawal of the Spanish or Italian forces from Iraq
would put huge pressure on the British presence, a pressure that Tony Blair might not be
able to withstand, and hence the domino tiles would fall quickly."
No matter who took the bombs onto those buses and subways in London, the attacks are
clearly of a piece with Al Qaeda's post-9/11 strategy. And while we don't know if the
claim of responsibility from a group calling itself the Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in
Europe was legitimate, an understanding of Al Qaeda's strategic logic may help explain
why that message included a threat of further attacks against Italy and Denmark, both of
which contributed troops in Iraq.
The bottom line, then, is that the terrorists have not been fundamentally weakened but
have changed course and achieved significant success. The London attacks will only
encourage Osama bin Laden and other Qaeda leaders in the belief that they will succeed
in their ultimate aim: causing America and its allies to withdraw forces from the Muslim
world.
Robert A. Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, is the author
of "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism."
July 8, 2005
Source: Robert Pape, “Dying to Win”; Charts by Nigel Holmes
Pape on NPR 7-19-05:
Copyright 2005 National Public Radio (R)
All Rights Reserved
National Public Radio (NPR)
SHOW: Morning Edition 10:00 AM EST NPR
July 19, 2005 Tuesday
LENGTH: 657 words
HEADLINE: Robert Pape discusses the history of suicide attacks
ANCHORS: RENEE MONTAGNE
BODY:
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
When investigators announced that the attacks in London were carried out by suspected
suicide bombers, Robert Pape wasn't surprised. He's the author of "Dying to Win: The
Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism."
Mr. ROBERT PAPE (Author, "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism"): The
purpose of a suicide attack is not so much to die as it is to kill.
MONTAGNE: To kill and to spread fear and to force political change; in particular, he believes,
to throw off an occupying force. Robert Pape says the London bombers were the latest to use
a technique that goes back to antiquity.
Mr. PAPE: The very first suicide attacks are the Jewish zealots in Zakari(ph) in the first
century AD. The Jewish zealots sought to foment a rebellion against Roman occupation by
often walking up to a Roman soldier in a square and pulling out a knife and killing the soldier,
often cutting his throat, knowing that there were other Roman soldiers standing right by that
would immediately execute or kill the zealot.
The next most famous group in history to use suicide attacks were the Ismaili assassins in the
11th and 12th century. They would attack a sultan and leave a message, which would say,
`There will be further attacks unless you leave our community alone.' This was where we get
the word `assassin' from because of their propensity to assassinate enemy leaders with a
suicide attack.
MONTAGNE: There is an expression used in Western Europe, falling on one's sword. Is that
part of this history of, in some sense, a suicide or attack or is it merely a suicide?
Mr. PAPE: There is a whole history of the use of suicide to avoid capture, and there can be
multiple reasons why attackers do that. Sometimes they're trying to preserve intelligence
information. Sometimes it's literally because the individual or the group does not want to be in
the hands of the capturing forces. The famous Masada incident, where nearly 800 Jews
decided to kill themselves rather than accept capture by Romans, was, in large part, because
they just simply couldn't stand the thought of having their women and children abused by the
Romans, as they understood they would be, and many of the men in that case believed that
they were going to be executed.
MONTAGNE: That does move us to the Japanese in World War II, who killed themselves rather
than be captured, but also used kamikaze tactics to kill others even as they died.
Mr. PAPE: The kamikaze efforts began in October 1944, right at the moment when the
Japanese military realized we were on the verge of consolidating our island-hopping campaign
to the point where it would be almost impossible to prevent us from soon attacking and
invading the Japanese home islands. They failed in their purpose of stopping our invasion of
Japan. However, tactically, they did increase the number damage or sunk by four or five times
using kamikaze tactics.
MONTAGNE: Why did it take until 1980 for suicide attacks, and then they were suicide
bombings mostly, to really spread?
Mr. PAPE: Suicide terrorism began in Lebanon in the early 1980s as a response to Israel's
invasion of Lebanon. The Hezbollah appears to have simply experimented with a handful of
suicide attacks. Their fourth suicide attack was the famous suicide truck bombing against the
Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Marines. Well, that attack was not only spectacular in
the number of deaths it produced, but it was also spectacular in the political results it
produced. That attack caused Ronald Reagan, no pacifist, to withdraw all American forces from
Lebanon and to virtually abandon the country politically and economically. That attack stands
as a lesson in Hezbollah's history. It's repeated by Hamas, by al-Qaeda, as the prime instance
that demonstrates suicide terrorism pays.
MONTAGNE: Robert Pape is the author of "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide
Terrorism."
You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
LOAD-DATE: July 19, 2005