The Cause Of Suicide Terrorism

When you hear the phrase suicide bomber what do you imagine? Most people image a crazy lunatic blowing themselves up. Others imagine a religious militant group that carries out suicide attacks in order to fulfill their obligation to their political party or group. Some say suicide terrorism is the most aggressive form of terrorism, pursuing coercion even at the expense of losing support among the terrorists' own community. What distinguishes a suicide terrorist is that the attacker does not expect to survive a mission and often employs a method of attack that requires the attacker's death in order to succeed such as planting a car bomb, wearing a suicide vest, or ramming an airplane into a building ( Pape 2003, 345). What drives a human being …show more content…
In recent times Islam has been associated with suicide bombers and most people associate anyone from the Middle East as a suicide bomber or Islamist radical. In the aftermath of 9/11, two myths were routinely promoted. First, suicide terrorism was a new phenomenon. Secondly, it was almost always the province of religious fanatics. In fact, suicide terrorism has existed since ancient times and no society or religion has a monopoly on it (Sheehan 2014, 82). Islamist radicals justify their cause by comparing the act of a suicide attack as a form of 'Jihad'. Jihad is an act of Islamic worship and is derived from the Arabic verb, Jihadi, which means “effort and striving” (Post et al. 2009, 16). There are many forms of Jihad, all of which are defined by a set of rules; Jihad is frequently interpreted as a self-defense: defense against temptation, defense against Satan, defense against the unjust. There are four important Jihads in Islam and the one that’s associated with ‘holy war’ is the Jihad of the sword, which commands Muslims to take up the sword against those who take up the sword against Muslims (Post et al. 2009, 16). This translation has been taken out of context by radicals in the Middle East and now has been used in their favor to persuade others into committing suicide attacks.
Another piece of information used to understand a suicide terrorist is by looking at the psychology of suicide terrorism. Some scholars believe that by studying suicide bombers they can figure out what drives a person to take their own life. However both of these claims are too weak to help point out the reason why people become suicide terrorism. My research will look to show that the true cause of suicide terrorist is actually occupation by a foreign state. This will show how both religion and psychology are just two branches on a bigger