An Understanding of the Worldwide Statistics and Dynamics of Terrorist Incidents and Suicide Attacks

Terrorist Incidents

“The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) is a research and education center at the University of Maryland, College Park focused on the scientific study of the causes and consequences of terrorism in the United States and around the world. It maintains the Global Terrorism Database, which includes over 125,000 terrorist attacks which it describes as the “most comprehensive unclassified database on terrorist events in the world.” START offers a number of datasets related to terrorism. The most important of these is the Global Terrorism Database, is a database of incidents of terrorism from 1970 onward. As of July 2017, the list extended through 2016, excluding the year 1993 due to issues with that year..” ref, ref

“The following is info on Pre-1800 to 1969 terrorist incidents and then list links of terrorist incidents which go from 1970 to 2019 that have not been carried out by a state or its forces (see state terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism). Assassinations are listed at List of assassinated people. Scholars dispute what might be called terrorism in earlier periods. The modern sense of terrorism emerged in the mid-19th century.” ref

Definitions of terrorism vary, so incidents listed here are restricted to those that:

are not approved by the legitimate authority of a recognized state;
are illegally perpetrated against people or property; and
are done to further political, religious, or ideological objectives. ref

“Scholars dispute whether the roots of terrorism date back to the 1st century and the Sicarii Zealots, to the 11th century and the Al-Hashshashin, to the 19th century and the Fenian Brotherhood and Narodnaya Volya, or to other eras. The Sicarii and the Hashshashin are described below, while the Fenian Brotherhood and Narodnaya Volya are discussed in the 19th Century sub-section. Other pre-Reign of Terror historical events sometimes associated with terrorism include the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to destroy the English Parliament in 1605.” ref

“During the 1st century CE, the Jewish Zealots in Judaea Province rebelled, killing prominent collaborators with Roman rule. In 6 CE, according to contemporary historian Josephus, Judas of Galilee formed a small and more extreme offshoot of the Zealots, the Sicarii (“dagger men”). Their efforts were also directed against Jewish “collaborators,” including temple priests, Sadducees, Herodians, and other wealthy elites. According to Josephus, the Sicarii would hide short daggers under their cloaks, mingle with crowds at large festivals, murder their victims, and then disappear into the panicked crowds. Their most successful assassination was of the High Priest of Israel Jonathan.” ref

“In the late 11th century, the Hashshashin (a.k.a. the Assassins) arose, an offshoot of the Isma’ili sect of Shia Muslims. Led by Hassan-i Sabbah and opposed to Fatimid rule, the Hashshashin militia seized Alamut and other fortress strongholds across Persia. Hashshashin forces were too small to challenge enemies militarily, so they assassinated city governors and military commanders in order to create alliances with militarily powerful neighbors. For example, they killed Janah al-Dawla, ruler of Homs, to please Ridwan of Aleppo, and assassinated Mawdud, Seljuk emir of Mosul, as a favor to the regent of Damascus. The Hashshashin also carried out assassinations as retribution. Under some definitions of terrorism, such assassinations do not qualify as terrorism, since killing a political leader does not intimidate political enemies or inspire revolt.” ref

“1865–1877 around 3,000 Freedmen and their Republican Party allies are killed by the Ku Klux Klan and well-organized campaigns of violence by other local whites in a campaign of terrorist violence that weakened the reconstructionist governments in the Southern United States and helped re-establish legitimized segregation.” ref

“1881-1885 Irish Republican Brotherhood Fenian dynamite campaign was a bombing campaign orchestrated against the British Empire which aimed to establish an independent Irish Republic. They targeted infrastructure, government, military and police targets in Great Britain (particularly London) killing around 98 people.” ref

“4 May 1886 The Haymarket Affair (also known as the Haymarket massacre, Haymarket riot, or Haymarket Square riot) which was a peaceful rally in Haymarket, Chicago, Illinois, disrupted when a bomb was detonated as police were dispersing the public demonstration. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour workday, the day after police killed eight workers. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at the police as they acted to disperse the meeting, and the bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; 70+ others were wounded and 100+ were arrested in total.” ref

“In the internationally publicized legal proceedings that followed, eight anarchists were convicted of conspiracy but only two had been present when the bomb exploded. The evidence was that one of the defendants may have built the bomb, but none of those on trial had thrown it. Seven were sentenced to death and one to a term of 15 years in prison. Illinois governor Richard J. Oglesby commuted two of the sentences to terms of life in prison; another committed suicide in jail rather than face the gallows. The other four were hanged on November 11, 1887. In 1893, Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned the remaining defendants and criticized the trial. The Haymarket affair is generally considered significant as the origin of International Workers’ Day held on May 1. Among supporters of the labor movement in the United States and abroad and others, the trial was widely believed to have been unfair, and even a serious miscarriage of justice.” ref

According to labor studies professor William J. Adelman:

“No single event has influenced the history of labor in Illinois, the United States, and even the world, more than the Chicago Haymarket Affair. It began with a rally on May 4, 1886, but the consequences are still being felt today. Although the rally is included in American history textbooks, very few present the event accurately or point out its significance.” ref

“Christopher Thale writes in the Encyclopedia of Chicago that lacking credible evidence regarding the bombing, “…the prosecution focused on the writings and speeches of the defendants.” He further notes that the conspiracy charge was legally unprecedented, the Judge was “partisan,” and all the jurors admitted prejudice against the defendants. Historian Carl Smith writes, “The visceral feelings of fear and anger surrounding the trial ruled out anything but the pretense of justice right from the outset.” Smith notes that scholars have long considered the trial a “notorious” “miscarriage of justice”. In a review somewhat more critical of the defendants, historian Jon Teaford concludes that “[t]he tragedy of Haymarket is the American justice system did not protect the damn fools who most needed that protection… It is the damn fools who talk too much and too wildly who are most in need of protection from the state.” Historian Timothy Messer-Kruse revisited the digitized trial transcript and argued that the proceedings were fair for their time, a challenge to the historical consensus that the trial was a travesty.” ref

“26 August 1896 with 10+ dead by the Occupation of the Ottoman Bank by Armenian separatists. A resulting anti-Armenian pogrom killed around 6,000 individuals. The armed assault/hijacking was done by members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnak Party) took place in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. In an effort to raise further awareness and action by the major European powers, 28 armed men and women led primarily by Papken Siuni and Armen Garo took over the bank which largely employed European personnel from Great Britain and France. Stirred largely due to the inaction of the European powers in regard to mass-pogroms and massacres of Armenians instigated by the Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation members saw its seizure as their best attempt to bring full attention to the massacres. The Ottoman Bank, at the time, served as an important financial center for both the Empire and the countries of Europe.” ref, ref

“28 April – 1 May 1903 Members of the Boatmen of Thessaloníki, a Bulgarian anarchist group, carried out a series of bombings in Thessaloniki also known as Thessalonica, Salonica or Salonika which is the second-largest city in Greece, and the capital of Greek Macedonia. They were influenced from anarcho-nationalism, most scholars consider a far-right type movement, which emerged in Europe, following the French Revolution. Their aim was to attract the attention of the Great Powers to Ottoman oppression in Macedonia and Thrace who are believed to have been ethnic Macedonians. National anarchism, in general, has been met with hostility from other anti-capitalist anarchists. One eco-anarchist magazine implored its readers to treat national anarchists ‘as if they were Klan members or Nazis.” ref, ref

“31 May 1906 24 people were killed when terrorists bombed the Royal Couple, Alfonso XIII of Spain and Victoria Eugenie, on their wedding day.” ref

“25 August 1906 28 people were killed when three terrorists bombed a reception in an attempt to assassinate Pyotr Stolypin.” ref

“11/12 July 1908 in Malmö, Sweden involved the bombing of the boat Amalthea where British strikebreakers lived by Anton Nilsson One was killed and 23 wounded.” ref

“1 October 1910 Los Angeles Times bombing killed 21 people and wounded over 100 others. Brothers John J. (“J.J.”) and James B. (“J.B.”) McNamara were arrested in April 1911 for the bombing. Their trial became a cause célèbre for the American labor movement. J.B. admitted to setting the explosive and was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. J.J. was sentenced to 15 years in prison for bombing a local iron manufacturing plant and returned to the Iron Workers union as an organizer.” ref, ref

“22 July 1916 Preparedness Day Bombing was a bombing in San Francisco, California on 22 July 1916, when the city held a parade in anticipation of the United States’ entry into World War I. During the parade, a suitcase bomb was detonated, killing ten and wounding forty.” ref

“30 July 1916 The Black Tom explosion was a planned detonation of a munitions factory at Black Tom Island in the neutral United States by Imperial German Agents that killed four and injured hundreds, as well as causing millions of dollars in damages.” ref

“16 September 1920 New York City, United States Galleanist Anarchists (where suspected) and they were a group of Italian anarchists and radicals in the United States who followed Luigi Galleani and his message of heroic violence in the face of capitalist oppression. Galleani was a figurehead in the Italian anarchist movement who, following the violence of the 1913 Paterson silk strike, turned from promoting a general strike to promoting individual acts of violence against capitalist targets. He believed that the spectacle of terrorism would trigger popular revolt. For the part of his followers, Galleani prompted a symbolic war that continued after his deportation and the raid on his newspaper.” ref, ref

“14 October 1920 in Trieste, Italy nationalists threw six bombs at the editorial office of a Socialist newspaper, resulting in one death and ten injuries.” ref

“15 October 1920 in Milan, Italy reportedly anarchists were responsible for throwing two bombs at a hotel holding a British delegation attending the Milan International Conference; there were two injuries.” ref

“8 December 1920 in Bucharest, Romania a bomb placed by a left-wing terrorist group blows up in the Romanian Senate, killing the Minister of Justice and two other senators. Likewise, President of the Senate and two Orthodox bishops were severely injured.” ref

“31 May 1921 The Ku Klux Klan Tulsa race riot killed at least 39 to 300 people and injured over 800.” ref

“13 December 1921 in Bolgrad, Romania the Bessarabian separatists committed the Bolgrad palace bombing, killed 100 soldiers and police officers.” ref

“31 October 1923 Far-right extremists shot two Jewish men as they walked across St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin. One of the men was killed.” ref

“16 April 1925 Sofia, Bulgaria the St Nedelya Church assault – where Bulgarian Communist Party(BCP) blew up the church’s roof during the funeral service of General Konstantin Georgiev, who had been killed in a previous Communist assault on 14 April. 150 people, mainly from the country’s political and military elite, were killed in the attack and around 500 were injured.” ref

“1936–1939 Mandatory Palestine 1936–39 Arab revolt, Palestine Arab “gang, and terrorist activities” against British colonial rule, and Jewish immigrants.” ref

“1937–1948 Mandatory Palestine The Irgun was responsible for numerous attacks in British-mandated Palestine.” ref

“3 March 1940 Sweden Politically motivated bombing targeted at the communist newspaper Norrskensflamman (Northern Flame) by various perpetrators. 5 persons were killed, 2 of which were children, along with with 5 others injured.” ref

“1940–1956 United States George Metesky, the “Mad Bomber”, places over 30 bombs in New York City in public places such as Grand Central Terminal and The Paramount Theater, injuring ten during this period, in protest against the local electric utility. He also sends many threatening letters.” ref

“4 July 1940 United States, a time bomb was recovered from the British Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, two policemen are killed.” ref

“22 July 1946 Mandatory Palestine, the King David Hotel bombing by Zionist paramilitary group Irgun kills 91 and injures 46 non-fatally.” ref

“25 July 1947 Romania, three Romanian terrorists kill an aircrew member aboard a Romanian airliner. This is regarded as the first aircraft hijack resulting in a fatality. ” ref

“22 February 1948 Mandatory Palestine, Ben Yehuda Street bombings: three British Army trucks led by an armored car driven by Arab irregulars and British deserters exploded on Ben Yehuda Street killing 58 Jewish civilians and injuring 140.” ref

“7 May 1949 Philippines thirteen people are killed as a Philippine airliner explodes in flight traveling from Daet to Manila. A time bomb detonates 30 minutes after departure near Alabat Island.” ref

“5 August 1949 Syria 12 killed and dozens injured in the Menarsha synagogue attack, Damascus.” ref

“15 April 1953 Argentina Detonation of two bombs in a union act organized by the General Confederation of Labour in Plaza de Mayo and the Plaza de Mayo station of the Buenos Aires Underground. As a result, six people died and more than 90 were injured.” ref

“17 March 1954 Israel, an Israeli civilian passenger bus is attacked by unknown assailants at the Scorpions Pass in the Negev, resulting in the deaths of eleven passengers.” ref

“16 June 1956 Cyprus The United States vice consul is killed and six other consulate staff are injured when a terrorist throws 2 bombs in a restaurant in Nicosia.” ref

“15 August 1958 Lebanon, three people are killed in a bomb blast in Beirut. The bombing also injures ten more at a grocery store near the Lebanese Parliament.” ref

“5 March 1960 Cuba, the French freighter La Coubre explodes, killing between 75 and 100 people with 200 injured. The government suspects sabotage.” ref

“22 November 1962 South Africa, members of the Pan Africanist Congress‘ military wing, Poqotargeted the town of Paarl in the Western Cape, when a crowd of over 200 people armed with axes, pangas, and other home-made weapons marched from the Mbekweni township into Paarl and attacked the police station, homes and shops. Two white residents and 5 attackers were killed. Poqo directed its activities at the white population in general. It was also Poqo’s avowed policy to attack and kill Black people who were some way or another linked to the apartheid state.” ref

“1963–1970 Canada Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) committed frequent bombings targeting English businesses and banks, as well as McGill University. The whole bombing campaign resulted in 8 known deaths and numerous injuries.” ref

“15 September 1963 United States, 16th Street Baptist Church bombing – Four members of the Ku Klux Klan planted at least 15 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the front steps of the church. The explosion killed 4 girls and wounded 22.” ref

“26 June 1965 South Vietnam two simultaneous explosions took place near a restaurant in the 1965 Saigon bombing during the Vietnam War. The attack killed 42 people and 80 were wounded.” ref

“12 November 1967 Greece, 12 November: A bomb explodes on board Cyprus Airways Flight 284near Rhodes killing all 66 people on the aircraft.” ref

“4 September 1968 Israel, three bombs are detonated in Tel Aviv, killing one person and injuring 51 people.” ref

“21–25 February 1969 Israel, three separate bombings in Jerusalem, one in the British Consulate and two in a supermarket. In one of the bombings at the supermarket, two Israelis were killed and in all attacks, 20 were injured. One of the terrorists involved was Rasmea Odeh.” ref

“1969 Ireland a UPV suicide bomber attacked a power station in Ballyshannon, County Donegal. There were no casualties other than the attacker. The UVF issued a statement saying the attempted attack was a protest against the Irish Army units “still massed on the border in Co Donegal”.” ref

“12 December 1969 Italy, Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan kills at least thirteen people and injures at least 85. Three additional blasts occur in Rome, injuring 16 people.” ref

“26 December 1969 Ireland the UVF bombed the Daniel O’Connell monument in Dublin. There were no injuries but buildings were damaged in a half mile radius.” ref

“Terrorist incidents, 1970–2015. A total of 157,520 incidents are plotted. Orange: 1970–1999, Red: 2000–2015” ref

” According to Paul Gill, John Horgan and Paige Deckert on behalf of The Department of security of UK, 43 percent of lone wolf terrorism is motivated by religious beliefs. The same report indicates that just less than a third (32 percent) have pre-existing mental health disorders, while many are found to have these problems upon arrest. At least 37 percent lived alone at the time of their event planning and/or execution, a further 26 percent lived with others, and no data were available for the remaining cases. 40 percent were unemployed at the time of their arrest or terrorist event. Many were chronically unemployed and consistently struggled to hold any form of employment for a significant amount of time. 19 percent of subjectively experienced being disrespected by others, while 14.3 percent experienced being the victim of verbal or physical assault.” ref

“According to Juergensmeyer, religion and violence have had a symbiotic relationship since before the Crusades and even since before the Bible. He defines religious terrorism as consisting of acts that terrify, the definition of which is provided by the witnesses – the ones terrified – and not by the party committing the act; accompanied by either a religious motivation, justification, organization or world view. Religion is sometimes used in combination with other factors, and sometimes as the primary motivation. Religious terrorism is intimately connected to current forces of geopolitics.” ref

Bruce Hoffman has characterized modern religious terrorism as having three traits:

The perpetrators must use religious scriptures to justify or explain their violent acts or to gain recruits.
Clerical figures must be involved in leadership roles.
Perpetrators use apocalyptic images of destruction to justify the acts. ref

Since 1980, however, there has been an increase in terrorist activity motivated by religion. However, former United States Secretary of State Warren Christopher has said that terrorist acts in the name of religion and ethnic identity have become “one of the most important security challenges we face in the wake of the Cold War.” ref

“Although a common factor in terrorism is a strong religious belief there are other factors such as cultural, social and political that wholly preclude religion. For example, “Nationalism Motivations” like the drive behind these Chechen terrorists are quite distinct and unique from others. Many of the Chechens considered themselves secular freedom fighters, nationalist insurgents seeking to establish an independent secular state of Chechnya. Although a distinction should be made between national Chechen terrorists and non-Chechen fighters who have adopted the idea from abroad. Few Chechen fighters fought for the jihads whereas most of the non-Chechen fighters did. Terrorism is most common in nations with intermediate political freedom, and it is least common in the most democratic nations. one study suggests that suicide attacks may be an exception to this general rule. Evidence regarding this particular method of terrorism reveals that every modern suicide campaign has targeted a democracy–a state with a considerable degree of political freedom.” ref

Martyrdom and Suicide Terrorism

“Symbolic acts such as the blood sacrifice link acts of violence to religion and terrorism. Suicide terrorism, self-sacrifice, or martyrdom has throughout history been organized and perpetrated by groups with both political and religious motivations. The Christian tradition has a long history of heterodoxical and heretical groups which stressed self-immolative acts and scholarship has to some degree linked this to modern political groups such as the Irish Republican Army. Suicide terrorism or martyrdom is efficient, inexpensive, easily organized, and extremely difficult to counter, delivering maximum damage for little cost. The shocking nature of a suicide attack also attracts public attention. Glorifying the culture of martyrdom benefits the terrorist organization and inspires more people to join the group. According to one commentator, retaliation against suicide attacks increases the group’s sense of victimization and commitment to adhere to doctrine and policy. This process serves to encourage martyrdom, and so suicide terrorism, self-sacrifice, or martyrdom represent “value for money”. Robert Pape, a political scientist who specializes in suicide terrorism, has made a case for secular motivations and reasons as being the foundations of most suicide attacks, which are often labeled as “religious.” ref

“Anthropologist Scott Atran states that since 2004 the overwhelming majority of bombers have been motivated by the ideology of Islamist martyrdom.” ref

“A suicide attack is any violent attack in which the attacker accepts their own death as a direct result of the method used to harm, damage or destroy the target. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout history and more recently as part of terrorist campaigns, such as the September 11 attacks. And between 1981 and September 2015, a total of 4,814 suicide attacks occurred in over 40 countries, killing over 45,000 people. During this time the global rate of such attacks grew from an average of three a year in the 1980s, to about one a month in the 1990s, to almost one a week from 2001 to 2003, to approximately one a day from 2003 to 2015.” ref

“Suicide attacks tend to be more deadly and destructive than other terror attacks. They constituted only 4% of all terrorist attacks around the world over one period (between 1981 and 2006), but caused 32% of all terrorism-related deaths (14,599). Ninety percent of those attacks occurred in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Overall, as of mid-2015 about three-quarters of all suicide attacks occurred in just three countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. Suicide attacks have been described as a weapon of psychological warfare to instill fear in the target population, a strategy to eliminate or at least drastically diminish areas where the public feels safe, and the “fabric of trust that holds societies together”, as well as demonstrate the lengths to which perpetrators will go to achieve their goals.” ref

“Islamist supporters often call a suicide attack Istishhad (often translated as “martyrdom operation“), and the suicide attacker shahid “shuhada,” literally ‘witness’ and usually translated as ‘martyr’. The idea being that the attacker died in order to testify his faith in God, for example, while waging jihad bis saif (jihad by the sword). The term “suicide” is never used because Islam has strong strictures against taking one’s own life. The terms Istishhad / “martyrdom operation” have been embraced by the Palestinian Authority, and by Hamas, Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Fatah and other Palestinian factions.” ref

“The 1st Century AD Jewish Sicarii sect are thought to have carried out suicidal attacks against Hellenized Jews they considered immoral collaborators. The Hashishiyeen (Assassins) sect of Ismaili Shi’a Muslims assassinated two caliphs, and many viziers, sultans and Crusader leaders over the course of 300 years, before being annihilated by Mongol invaders.” ref

“Muslim Acehnese from the Aceh Sultanate performed suicide attacks known as Parang-sabilagainst Dutch invaders during the Aceh War, also known as the Dutch War or the Infidel War(1873–1904). It was considered as part of personal jihad in the Islamic religion of the Acehnese. Also used against the Japanese by the Acehnese during the Japanese occupation of Aceh. The Acehnese Ulama (Islamic clerics) fought against both the Dutch and the Japanese, revolting against the Dutch in February 1942 and against Japan in November 1942. The revolt was led by the All-Aceh Religious Scholars’ Association (PUSA). The Japanese suffered 18 dead in the uprising while they slaughtered up to 100 or over 120 Acehnese. The revolt happened in Bayu and was centered around Tjot Plieng village’s religious school.” ref

“Moro Muslims who performed suicide attacks were called mag-sabil, and the suicide attacks were known as Parang-sabil. The Spanish called them juramentado. The idea of the juramentado was considered part of jihad in the Moros’ Islamic religion. During an attack, a Juramentado would throw himself at his targets and kill them with bladed weapons such as barongs and kris until he himself was killed. The Moros performed juramentado suicide attacks against the Spanish in the Spanish–Moro conflict of the 16th to the 19th centuries, against the Americans in the Moro Rebellion (1899–1913), and against the Japanese in World War II.” ref

“The Moro Juramentados aimed their attacks specifically against their enemies, and not against non-Muslims in general. They launched suicide attacks on the Japanese, Spanish, Americans, and Filipinos, but did not attack the non-Muslim Chinese as the Chinese were not considered enemies of the Moro people. The Japanese responded to these suicide attacks by massacring all known family members and relatives of the attacker(s). And according to historian Stephan Dale, the Moro were not the only Muslims who carried out suicide attacks “in their fight against Western hegemony and colonial rule”. In the 18th century, suicide tactics were used on the Malabar coast of Southwestern India, in Atjeh (Acheh) in Northern Sumatra as well.” ref

“The Islamic Dawa Party‘s car bombing of the Iraqi embassy in Beirut in December 1981 and Hezbollah‘s bombing of the U.S. embassy in April 1983 and attack on United States Marine and French barracks in October 1983 brought suicide bombings international attention. Other parties to the civil war were quick to adopt the tactic, and by 1999 factions such as Hezbollah, the Amal Movement, the Ba’ath Party, and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party had carried out around 50 suicide bombings between them. (The latter of these groups sent the first recorded female suicide bomber in 1985.)” ref

During the Sri Lankan Civil War, the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) adopted suicide bombing as a tactic, using bomb belts and female bombers. Tamilians or simply Tamils, are an ethnic group who speak the language Tamil as their mother tongue and trace their ancestry to southern India and north-eastern Sri Lanka. Although most Tamils are Hindus, many, especially those in the rural areas practice what is considered to be folk Hinduism, venerating a plethora of village deities; while a sizeable number are Muslims and Christians. A small Jain community survives from the classical period as well. The LTTE carried out their first suicide attack in July 1987, and their Black Tiger unit committed 83 suicide attacks from 1987 to 2009, killing 981 people, including former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and the president of Sri Lanka, Ranasinghe Premadasa.” ref, ref, ref

“Another non-religious group involved in suicide attacks was the Kurdistan Workers’ Party which began their insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984. According to the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism‘s Suicide Attack Database, as of 2015, ten suicide attacks by the PKK from 1996 to 2012 killed 32 people and injured 116. (Suicide attacks are only part of the PKK’s militant arsenal as they have killed or wounded hundreds of government workers and destroyed or damaged hundreds of school, post offices and mosques.” ref

“Al-Qaeda carried out its first suicide attack in the mid-1990s, and they first appeared in Israel and the Palestinian Territories in 1989.” ref

*9/11 and after

“The number of attacks using suicide tactics grew from an average of fewer than five per year during the 1980s to 81 suicide attacks in 2001 to 460 in 2005. By 2005, the tactic had spread to dozens of countries.” ref

“Suicide bombing became a popular tactic among Palestinian militant organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and occasionally by the PFLP. The first suicide bombing in Israel was by HAMAS in 1994. Attacks peaked from 2001–2003 with over 40 bombings and over 200 killed in 2002. Bombers affiliated with these groups often use so-called “suicide belts“, explosive devices (often including shrapnel) designed to be strapped to the body under clothing. In order to maximize the loss of life, the bombers seek out enclosed spaces, such as cafés or city buses crowded with people at rush hour. Less common are military targets (for example, soldiers waiting for transport at roadside).” ref

“These bombings have tended to have more popular support than in other Muslim countries, and more music videos and announcements that promise eternal reward for suicide bombers can be found on Palestinian television (according to Palestinian Media Watch). Israeli sources observed that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah operate “Paradise Camps”, training children as young as 11 to become suicide bombers.” ref

“The September 11, 2001 attacks, orchestrated by al-Qaeda, has been called “the worst attack on American soil since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which thrust the United States into World War II“. They involved the hijacking of four large passenger jet airliners because their long transcontinental flight plans meant they carried more fuel, allowing a bigger explosion on impact (unlike earlier airline hijackings, the primary focus was the planes, not the passengers). Two planes were deliberately flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, destroying both 110 story skyscrapers within less than two hours, and a third was flown into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, causing severe damage to the west side of the building. These attacks resulted in the deaths of 221 people (including the 15 hijackers) on board the three planes as well as 2,731 more in and around the targeted buildings. A fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after a revolt by the plane’s passengers, killing all 44 people (including the four hijackers) on board. In total, the attacks killed 2,996 people and injured more than 6,000 others. The U.S. stock market closed for four trading days after the attacks (the first time it had an unscheduled closing since the Great Depression).” ref

“After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraqi and foreign insurgents carried out waves of suicide bombings. More attacks have been carried out in Iraq (1938 as of mid-2015) than in any other country. In addition to United States military targets, they attacked many civilian targets such as Shiite mosques, international offices of the UN and the Red Cross. Iraqi men waiting to apply for jobs with the new army and police force were targets. In the lead up to the Iraqi parliamentary election, on January 30, 2005, suicide attacks upon civilian and police personnel involved with the elections increased. There were also reports of the insurgents co-opting disabled people as involuntary suicide bombers.” ref

“Other major locations of suicide attack are Afghanistan (1,059 attacks as of mid-2015) and Pakistan (490 attacks). In the first eight months of 2008, Pakistan overtook Iraq and Afghanistan in suicide bombings, with 28 bombings killing 471 people. Suicide bombings have become a tactic in Chechnya, first being used in the conflict in 2000 in Alkhan Kala, and spreading to Russia, notably with the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002 to the Beslan school hostage crisis in 2004. In Europe, four Islamist suicide bombers exploded home-made peroxide explosives on three London underground trains and a bus on 7 July 2005, during the morning rush hour. These “7/7″ bombings killed 52 civilians and injured 700. Since 2006, al-Shabaab and its predecessor, the Islamic Courts, have carried out major suicide attacks in Somalia, the worse year so far being 2014 with 16 attacks and over 120 killed.” ref

Support for “martyrdom operations”

“Islamist militant organizations (including al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad) argue that despite what some Muslims claim is Islam’s strict prohibition of suicide and murder, suicide attacks fulfill the obligation of jihad against the “oppressor”, “martyrs” will be rewarded with paradise, and have the support of (some) Muslim clerics. Clerics have supported suicide attacks largely in connection with the Palestinian issue. Prominent Sunni cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi previously had supported such attacks by Palestinians in perceived defense of their homeland as heroic and an act of resistance. Shiite Lebanese cleric Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, the spiritual authority recognized by Hezbollah, holds similar views.” ref

“According to the conservative Iranian Shi’ah cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, “When protecting Islam and the Muslim community depends on martyrdom operations, it not only is allowed but even is an obligation as many of the Shi’ah great scholars and Maraje’, including Ayatullah Safi Golpayegani and Ayatullah Fazel Lankarani, have clearly announced in their fatwas.” The Quranic verse used by Zarein Ahmedzay (an Afghanistan-born New York City cab driver who traveled to Waziristan for terrorist training and discussed possible suicide bombing target locations in crowded parts of Manhattan) in support of his actions was 9:111 (Surah At-Tawba):

Verily, Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their wealth for the price of Paradise, to fight in the way of Allah, to kill and be killed. It is a promise binding on the truth in the Torah, the Gospel and the Qur’an.” ref

“Supporters of the Taliban insist their attacks are “martyrdom operations” and not suicide. The June 2013 issue of the Taliban magazine Azan extolled the virtues of suicide attacks, claiming that “suicide bombing” is a “false term” for jihad martyrdom attacks. “So martyrdom operation ≠ Suicide bombing”. The articles maintains that Abu Huraira (a companion of the Muhammad) and Umar ibn Khattab (the third caliph of Islam), approved acts in which the Muslims knew would lead to certain death, and that the Islamic prophet Muhammad also approved of such acts (according to authors Maulana Muawiya Hussaini and Ikrimah Anwar cited numerous Hadith of Muhammad on the authority of Islamic jurist Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj). “The Sahaba [companions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad] who carried out the attacks almost certainly knew that they were going to be killed during their operations but they still carried them out and such acts were extolled and praised in the sharia.” ref

“However, according to Bernard Lewis, “the emergence of the now widespread terrorism practice of suicide bombing is a development of the 20th century. It has no antecedents in Islamic history, and no justification in terms of Islamic theology, law, or tradition.” Islamic legal rules of armed warfare or military jihad are covered in detail in the classical texts of Islamic jurisprudence, which forbids the killing of women, children or non-combatants, and the destroying of cultivated or residential areas. For more than a millennium, these tenets were accepted by Sunnis and Shiites; however, since the 1980s militant Islamists have challenged the traditional Islamic rules of warfare to justify suicide attacks.” ref

“A number of respected Muslim scholars have provided scholastic refutations of suicide bombings, condemning them as terrorism prohibited in Islam and leading their perpetrators to hell. In his 400+ page Fatwa on Terrorism condemning suicide attacks, Muslim Islamic scholar Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri directly disputed the rationale of Islamists, arguing among other things that the indiscriminately killing of both Muslims and non-Muslims is unlawful, and brings the Muslim ummah into disrepute, no matter how lofty the killers’ intentions. Tahir-ul-Qadri states terrorism “has no place in Islamic teaching, and no justification can be provided to it…good intention cannot justify a wrong and forbidden act”.” ref

“Islamic suicide bombing is a fairly recent event. It was totally absent from the 1979–1989 Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union, (an asymmetrical war where the mujahideen fought Soviet warplanes, helicopters, and tanks primarily with light weapons). According to author Sadakat Kadri, “the very idea that Muslims might blow themselves up for God was unheard of before 1983, and it was not until the early 1990s that anyone anywhere had tried to justify killing innocent Muslims who were not on a battlefield.” After 1983 the process was limited among Muslims to Hezbollah and other Lebanese Shi’a factions for more than a decade. Since then, the “vocabulary of martyrdom and sacrifice”, videotaped pre-confession of faith by attackers have become part of “Islamic cultural consciousness”, “instantly recognizable” to Muslims (according to Noah Feldman), while the tactic has spread through the Muslim world “with astonishing speed and on a surprising course.” ref

An Understanding of the Worldwide Statistics and Dynamics of Terrorist Incidents and Suicide Attacks

*9/11 and after

The Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries Shows in the prehistory series:

Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):

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