SUICIDE BOMBING A NEW KIND OF TERRORISM ?

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SUICIDE BOMBING A NEW KIND OF TERRORISM?

• by Dmitri Govorov

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SUICIDE BOMBING

• What is suicide bombing?
• Historic review
• Legal approval?
• Reasoning of suicide bomber
• Female suicide bombers
• Typical suicide bomber
• Support for suicide bombers
• How it works
• Fighting suicide bombers

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What is suicide bombing?

• Form of terrorism
• Asymmetric warfare
• Willingly
• Own death
• Death of enemies

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The ends of a suicide bomber

• political tactic
• opposition to enemy forces
• desperation to third parties
• against civilian targets
• fear

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Historic review

• Islamic Order of Assassins
• Robespierre and French Revolution
• Russia (Lenin)
• World War II (Japanese kamikaze)
• Cambodia (Pol Pot)
• Iran (Khomeini)
• Turkey (Kurdistan Workers Party)
• Sri-Lanka (Tamil Tigers)
• Palestine (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Martyrs
  Brigade)
• September 11
• Chechnya

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Statistics
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Chechenyan suicide bombers

• over 10 attacks
• scores wounded and over 100 Russian soldiers and
  police officers killed
• July 2003. First attacks against civilians in
  Moscow

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Legal approval?

• Against soldiers
• Approved by international law
• Hague International Convention of 1907
• Nuremberg Tribunal
• Against civilians
• Palestinians no such thing as an Israeli
  civilian
• More examples
• When Britain and America could not kill enemy
  soldiers on the battlefield they killed their
  families from the air.

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Reasoning of suicide bomber

• Crazed cowards?
• Research no psychopathology reasonable
  well-off economically and educationally.

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Reasoning of suicide bomber

• deep grievance (killed friend or a member of
  family)
• suffering from historical injustice
• the only method to fight enemy
• loyal to intimate group of peers

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Female suicide bombers

• New phenomenon
• Obstacles to training women as bombers
• Rigid social norms
• not permitted to show their bodies to men

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Typical suicide bomber

• Example Palestine

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Support for suicide bombers

• Family
• Society
• Religion
• Economic support

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Support for suicide bombers Family

• Parents of a child that killed himself and
  others, seem happy, proud, and - should the
  opportunity present itself - ready to send
  another child off to the afterlife.

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Support for suicide bombersSociety

• 70 to 80 of Palestinians support suicide
  bombing
• matryrdom operations
• Military summer camps for children
• Streets, hospitals, babies and children's events
  named after martyrs
• marches and celebrations after attacks

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Support for suicide bombers

• Religion
• by blowing themselves up in a crowd, they are
  forging their own gateway to heaven
• Economic support
• 25,000 for relatives of suicide bombers

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Preparing suicide attack

• highly communitarian enterprise
• parents of recruits often do not know
• undergo months of indoctrination to prepare for
  attacks
• loyalty to group
• believe in mission from God
• expect rewards in the afterlife
• waiting lists of militants
• good knowledge of Israeli roads, cities and
  landmarks many had jobs in Israel (no visible
  border between Israel and the West Bank)
• explosives strapped around the waist

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Choosing target

• look for a spot to cause more deaths
• favorite targets crowded buses, cafes, outdoor
  markets
• final prayer when zero hour approaches
• bombers instructed to write or videotape final
  testimony

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Fighting suicide bombers

• difficult to combat
• Palestinian suicide bombers are a mirror image of
  the Israeli policy
• harsh reaction
• Israeli raids on refugee camps give suicide
  bombers propaganda victory
• difficult to assess results

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Methods to combat suicide bombing

• target the community or organization suicide
  bomber came from
• put a fence
• Palestinian and Israeli populations to be
  separated
• shutting down Israeli settlements in West Bank
  and Gaza
• creating buffer zone between two populations
• address grievances and humiliations the
  Palestinians suffer

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THE END