Assess the impact of suicide terrorism as a tactic for forcing political change.
Terrorist and terror groups promote the use of violence in order to pressure political change. Suicide terrorist attackers pose more lethality due to their increased ability to reach an intended target, leave a greater psychological impact and ultimately intimidate a government into reforms. Hoffman (2003) describes suicide terrorist as the “ultimate smart bomb” (para. 3). They are inexpensive, lethal and always bring media attention. In the last fifteen years, the use of suicide bombers have spread from the Middle East to Turkey, Russia and Europe – and to the United States.
The 1983 suicide bombing attack of the U.S. Marine Corps soldiers and French paratrooper…show more content… First, there are no shortage of volunteers for either domestic or transnational martyrdom operations. Religion has an advantage over secular teachings, as religion promises eternal reward as opposed to secularism which can only promise that death will lead to ultimate triumph (Altunbulak & Sarica, 2007). Santifort-Jordan and Sandler (2014) found an increase in transnational suicide terror attacks commensurate with international counter-insurgency operations, while showing a decrease in successful domestic operations. This could be attributed to more money and assets placed into localized counter-insurgency efforts, as well as, target hardening and mindset. Based on the existing data, so long as there is continued global operations against terrorism, there will be continued use of suicide bombers. Also, suicide weapons are hard to stop. It is virtually impossible to guard soft targets against terrorism – it is not cost efficient. Lastly, it will continue to remain attractive due to its sensationalism, further promoted by video and the internet, and its effect on the general public (Altunbulak & Sarica, 2007). With that said, why are bombings in the Middle East so popular? One may need to go no further than to analyze Palestinian public sentiment. According to Bloom (2004), Palestinian public opinion is fully supportive of
