Suicide Strategy

• Share

What explains the appeal of suicide attacks in Iraq? For one thing, using oneself as a weapon can be a relatively effective tactic against an enemy with far superior firepower. And extremist Muslim suicide bombers believe that their sacrifice guarantees them "martyrdom" and a passport to paradise. (That said, suicide attacks aren't unique to Islamist insurgencies. Sri Lanka's mostly Hindu Tamil Tigers have probably conducted more such attacks than any other single group.)

In Iraq most suicide attacks are thought to have been carried out by foreign fighters. Insurgent commanders tend to view Iraqi fighters as more valuable alive: they have extensive support networks and know the home terrain. "Why waste such a valuable resource on a single mission when you can use him for a number of other important tasks?" says Navy Commander Fred Gaghan, who investigates bombings in Iraq. These days, however, more and more Iraqis like Marwan Abu Ubeida are signing up to kill themselves. That is happening, Iraqi insurgents say, in part because the rebels' tactics now involve deploying a large number of such attackers, which is depleting the supply of foreign volunteers.

Robert Pape, author of a book about suicide terrorism, Dying to Win, says the tactic has historically been used when two conditions are met: first, insurgents feel they are fighting foreign troops in places they regard as their homeland (Osama bin Laden, for example, has railed against U.S. bases in the Arabian Peninsula); and second, when the occupiers come from a different religious background, insurgents are able to paint them as subjugators of their faith and its followers. Those conditions, it turns out, co-exist prominently in the Muslim world today, particularly in the Middle East. --With reporting by Aparisim Ghosh