Suicide Terrorism and Democracy - Cato Institute · the suicide attacks. Leaders of suicide...

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Over the past two decades, terrorist organiza- tions have increasingly relied on suicide attacks to achieve political objectives. The specific goal sought in almost all suicide terrorist campaigns in modern history is the same: to compel a democratic state to withdraw combat forces from territory prized by the terrorists. This holds true for al-Qaeda, the ter- rorist organization of greatest concern to most Americans. Al-Qaeda’s efforts to mobilize people to kill Americans are driven principally by a simple strategic goal: to drive the United States and its Western allies from the Arabian Peninsula and other Muslim countries. Terrorist groups that employ suicide as a tactic follow a strategic logic to compel democratic gov- ernments to change their policies, but the motiva- tions of the individual attackers have evolved over the past few years. In the London bombings of July 7, 2005, and in the failed plot to blow up air- liners over the Atlantic uncovered in August 2006, the actual and prospective suicide terrorists were not personally suffering under foreign occupa- tion, but they did sympathize with the plight of a kindred group. Deep anger at the use of foreign combat forces to suppress national self-determi- nation by kindred groups is sufficient to inspire self-sacrifice even when personal motives for revenge are completely absent. Understanding that suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation rather than a product of Islamic fundamentalism has important implications for how the U.S. govern- ment should conduct the war on terrorism. Over the next year, the United States and its allies in Iraq should completely turn over the responsibil- ity for Iraq’s security to Iraq’s new government and should start systematically withdrawing troops. The Bush administration should similar- ly revisit the deployment of all U.S. military per- sonnel in the Persian Gulf region. The West man- aged its interests there during the 1970s and 1980s without stationing any combat soldiers on the ground. This “offshore balancing” approach kept our forces close enough that they could respond in the event of an emergency that posed a direct threat to U.S. vital interests. In order to effectively fight al-Qaeda, the United States should complete the transition toward a similar “offshore balancing” strategy by the end of the Bush presidency. Suicide Terrorism and Democracy What We’ve Learned Since 9/11 by Robert A. Pape _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Robert A. Pape is professor of political science at the University of Chicago and director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism. He is the author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (2005). Executive Summary No. 582 November 1, 2006

Transcript of Suicide Terrorism and Democracy - Cato Institute · the suicide attacks. Leaders of suicide...

Page 1: Suicide Terrorism and Democracy - Cato Institute · the suicide attacks. Leaders of suicide terror-ist organizations have in fact come to believe that suicide attacks are an effective

Over the past two decades, terrorist organiza-tions have increasingly relied on suicide attacks toachieve political objectives. The specific goal soughtin almost all suicide terrorist campaigns in modernhistory is the same: to compel a democratic state towithdraw combat forces from territory prized bythe terrorists. This holds true for al-Qaeda, the ter-rorist organization of greatest concern to mostAmericans. Al-Qaeda’s efforts to mobilize people tokill Americans are driven principally by a simplestrategic goal: to drive the United States and itsWestern allies from the Arabian Peninsula andother Muslim countries.

Terrorist groups that employ suicide as a tacticfollow a strategic logic to compel democratic gov-ernments to change their policies, but the motiva-tions of the individual attackers have evolved overthe past few years. In the London bombings ofJuly 7, 2005, and in the failed plot to blow up air-liners over the Atlantic uncovered in August 2006,the actual and prospective suicide terrorists werenot personally suffering under foreign occupa-tion, but they did sympathize with the plight of akindred group. Deep anger at the use of foreigncombat forces to suppress national self-determi-

nation by kindred groups is sufficient to inspireself-sacrifice even when personal motives forrevenge are completely absent.

Understanding that suicide terrorism ismainly a response to foreign occupation ratherthan a product of Islamic fundamentalism hasimportant implications for how the U.S. govern-ment should conduct the war on terrorism. Overthe next year, the United States and its allies inIraq should completely turn over the responsibil-ity for Iraq’s security to Iraq’s new governmentand should start systematically withdrawingtroops. The Bush administration should similar-ly revisit the deployment of all U.S. military per-sonnel in the Persian Gulf region. The West man-aged its interests there during the 1970s and1980s without stationing any combat soldiers onthe ground. This “offshore balancing” approachkept our forces close enough that they couldrespond in the event of an emergency that poseda direct threat to U.S. vital interests. In order toeffectively fight al-Qaeda, the United Statesshould complete the transition toward a similar“offshore balancing” strategy by the end of theBush presidency.

Suicide Terrorism and DemocracyWhat We’ve Learned Since 9/11

by Robert A. Pape

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Robert A. Pape is professor of political science at the University of Chicago and director of the Chicago Project onSuicide Terrorism. He is the author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (2005).

Executive Summary

No. 582 November 1, 2006

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Introduction

Almost every week, a suicide bomber walksinto a crowd of Iraqis waiting to join the govern-ment’s security forces or rams a car laden withexplosives into an American military convoy.Almost every month this year, al-Qaeda hasreleased a new video seeking to encourageMuslims to copy the example of the July 7, 2005,London suicide bombers and strap explosives tothemselves in order to carry out an attack thatwould surely kill many Americans or their allies.In April of this year, the Tamil Tigers againbegan to use suicide attacks as a means toachieve their objectives in Sri Lanka after havingstopped using this tactic for several years. And inAugust, British authorities thwarted an appar-ent suicide terrorist plot to destroy as many as10 U.S.-bound airliners in mid-flight over theAtlantic Ocean. Suicide terrorism is not a recentphenomenon, however. Over the past twodecades, terrorist organizations in Lebanon, theWest Bank, Chechnya, Kashmir, and elsewherehave increasingly relied on suicide attacks toachieve major political objectives.

We know the horror. We know not to besurprised, even though suicide attacks oftencome after months of relative calm. But dowe understand what would drive seeminglyordinary people to strap explosives to theirbodies and deliberately kill themselves on amission to kill others?

Recently, we have made strides in under-standing suicide terrorism. Just a few years ago,one could listen to seemingly endless reportsasking, “Why do only Muslims carry out suicideattacks?” Such news stories dovetailed with thepopular notion that suicide terrorism is a prod-uct of religious extremism where poor, desper-ate (Muslim) souls seek to escape the troublesof this world for a quick trip to paradise.

Today, we know significantly more. Muchof what we now know challenges the conven-tional wisdom. Some is disconcerting.

A detailed study of every suicide terroristbombing and attack around the world from1980 through the end of 2003—with a total of462 suicide terrorists who actually killedthemselves to complete their missions—sug-

gests that more than half of those bomberswere motivated by secular aims. At least 30percent of all suicide terrorist attacks conduct-ed by Muslims are committed on behalf ofgroups with purely secular aims, such as theKurdistan Workers Party (also known as thePartiya Karkeren Kurdistan, or PKK), aKurdish terrorist group in Turkey. Evidencefrom Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in thepast two years largely fits within this pattern.Meanwhile, the world leader in suicide terror-ism over the years is a group that many in theWest have not heard much about—the TamilTigers in Sri Lanka. This group—secular in ori-entation, adhering to a Marxist political ideol-ogy, and whose fighters are predominantlyHindu—has carried out more suicide terroristattacks than Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

Instead of religion, almost all suicide ter-rorist attacks around the world have in com-mon a specific political goal: to compel ademocratic state to withdraw combat forcesfrom territory that the terrorists consider tobe their homeland or prize greatly. This hasbeen the central goal of every campaign ofsuicide terrorism since 1980, from Lebanon,Sri Lanka, and Chechnya to Kashmir, theWest Bank, and Iraq. It also holds true for al-Qaeda, the organization of greatest concernto most Americans.

To put today’s suicide terrorism into per-spective, it is helpful to look more systemati-cally at the global patterns of suicide terror-ism since 1980 and to focus specifically onthe case of al-Qaeda. It is further helpful tobriefly address suicide terrorism in Iraq. Theavailable data on suicide attacks through theend of 2005, combined with the previousinformation on the sources of suicide terror-ism, provides a solid foundation for develop-ing a new strategy for the United States tomitigate the danger we face.

Global Patterns of SuicideTerrorism

Although terrorism has long been part ofinternational politics, we do not have good

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Almost all suicideterrorist attacks

have in commona specific political

goal: to compel ademocratic state

to withdraw forces from

territory that theterrorists

prize greatly.

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explanations for the increase in suicide terror-ism before 9/11. Traditional studies of terror-ism tend to treat suicide attack as one of manytactics that terrorists use, and so do not shedmuch light on the recent rise of this particulartype of attack.1 The few studies that explicitlyaddress suicide terrorism in the 1980s and1990s tend to focus on the irrationality of theact of suicide from the perspective of the indi-vidual attacker. As a result, they concentrateon individual motives—either religious indoc-trination or psychological predispositionsthat might drive individual suicide bombers.2

This work is important and largely accountsfor the twin explanations commonly offeredin academic and journalistic accounts, namelythat suicide terrorism is a product of eitherIslamic fundamentalist indoctrination or sui-cidal individuals who would likely end theirlives in any event.3

These first-wave explanations of suicideterrorism were developed during the 1980sand were consistent with the data from thatperiod. However, as suicide attacks mountedfrom the 1990s onward, it has become increas-ingly evident that these initial explanations areinsufficient to account for which individualsbecome suicide terrorists and, more impor-tantly, why terrorist organizations are increas-ingly relying on this form of attack. First,although religious motives may matter, mod-ern suicide terrorism is not limited to Islamicfundamentalism. Islamic groups receive themost attention in Western media, but, asnoted above, the world’s leader in suicide ter-rorism is actually the Marxist/Leninist HinduLiberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).4

Second, although study of the personalcharacteristics of suicide attackers may some-day help identify the individuals that terroristorganizations are likely to recruit for that pur-pose, the vast spread of suicide terrorism overthe last two decades suggests that suicide ter-rorists do not fit a single profile. Until recently,the leading experts in psychological profiles ofsuicide terrorists characterized them as unedu-cated, unemployed, socially isolated, singlemen in their late teens and early twenties.5 Nowwe know that suicide terrorists can be college

educated or uneducated, married or single,men or women, socially isolated or integrated,teenaged or middle aged (they’ve ranged from15 to 52). At least one of the individuals arrest-ed in August in the United Kingdom was awoman, married to one of the other would-besuicide bombers, and the mother of a youngchild.6 In other words, although only a tinynumber of people become suicide terrorists,they come from a broad cross-section oflifestyles, and it may be impossible to pickthem out in advance.7

This study goes a step beyond the firstwave explanations and shows that the groups,not necessarily the individual bombers, fol-low a strategic logic. Viewed from the per-spective of the terrorist organization, suicideattacks are designed to achieve specific polit-ical purposes: to coerce a target governmentto change policy, to mobilize additionalrecruits and financial support, or both.Moreover, most governments that have beentargeted by suicide terrorism made conces-sions toward the terrorists’ political cause.Most of those concessions were driven by thecoercive pressure of the suicide attacks oroccurred at times and under circumstanceswherein they could plausibly be attributed tothe suicide attacks. Leaders of suicide terror-ist organizations have in fact come to believethat suicide attacks are an effective coercivetool. During the past 25 years, suicide terror-ism has been steadily rising because terroristshave learned that it pays.

Defining Suicide Terrorism

Terrorism involves the use of violence by anorganization other than a national governmentto cause intimidation or fear among a targetaudience.8 Although one could broaden thedefinition of terrorism to include the actions ofa national government to cause terror amongan opposing population, adopting such abroad definition would distract attention fromwhat policymakers would most like to know:how to combat the threat to state securityposed by subnational groups. Furthermore, a

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Suicide terroristscome from abroad cross-section oflifestyles, and it may be impossible topick them out inadvance.

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broader definition could also create analyticconfusion. Terrorist organizations and nation-al governments have different levels of re-sources, face different kinds of incentives, andare susceptible to different types of pressures.Accordingly, the determinants of their behaviorare not likely to be the same.

Suicide terrorism is an aggressive, distinctform of terrorism. The purpose is not simply todie, but to kill. What distinguishes a suicideterrorist is that the attacker does not expect tosurvive a mission and often employs a methodof attack that requires the attacker’s death inorder to succeed (such as a car bomb, suicidevest, or ramming an airplane into a building).In essence, a suicide terrorist kills others at thesame time he kills himself.9 In principle, sui-cide terrorists could be used for demonstrativepurposes, in other words, showing the resolveof the group, or they could be limited to onlytargeted assassinations.10 In practice, however,suicide terrorists often seek simply to kill thelargest number of people possible. This featureis important because if suicide terrorism weremainly a tactic used to advance a religiousagenda, killing large numbers of people in thetarget audience would be a rather poor way toachieve this end because it would alienate thosein the target audience who might be sympa-thetic to the terrorists’ cause. So, althoughkilling large numbers maximizes the coerciveleverage that can be gained from terrorism, itdoes so at the greatest cost to the terrorists’basis of support.11 Thus, while coercion is anelement in all terrorism, coercion is the para-mount objective of suicide terrorism.

The Strategic Logic ofSuicide Terrorism

At its core, suicide terrorism aims to com-pel a target government to change policy. Thestrategic logic is simple: suicide terrorismattempts to inflict enough pain and threatenenough future pain to overwhelm the targetcountry’s interest in resisting the terrorists’demands. The common feature of all suicideterrorist campaigns is that they inflict pun-

ishment on the opposing society, eitherdirectly, by killing civilians, or indirectly, bykilling military personnel in circumstancesthat cannot lead to meaningful battlefieldvictory. Suicide terrorism, rarely being a one-time event, generates coercive leverage bothfrom the immediate panic associated witheach attack and from the risk of civilian pun-ishment in the future. The suicide terrorismcampaign succeeds if it induces an opposinggovernment to concede and change the poli-cy, or if the opposing population changes thegovernment, which then results in a changeof policy.

Although the element of suicide is noveland the pain inflicted on civilians is oftenspectacular and gruesome, the heart of thestrategy of suicide terrorism is the same asthe coercive logic used by states when theyemploy strategic air power or economic sanc-tions to punish an adversary: to causemounting civilian costs to overwhelm thetarget state’s interest in the issue in disputeand so to cause it to concede the adversary’spolitical demands. Targets may be economicor political, military or civilian, but in allcases the main task is less to destroy the spe-cific targets than to convince the opposingsociety that it is vulnerable to more attacks inthe future.

The rhetoric of major suicide terroristgroups reflects this logic. Abdel Karim, aleader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a mil-itant group linked to the Palestinian Fatahmovement, said the goal of his group was “toincrease losses in Israel to a point at whichthe Israeli public would demand a withdraw-al from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” Theinfamous 1998 fatwa signed by Osama BinLaden and others against the United Statesreads: “The ruling to kill the Americans andtheir allies—civilians and military—is an indi-vidual duty for every Muslim who can do it inany country in which it is possible to do it, inorder to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and theholy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and inorder for their armies to move out of all thelands of Islam, defeated and unable to threat-en any Muslim.”12

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Suicide terrorismattempts to inflict

enough pain tooverwhelm the

target country’sinterest in

resisting the terrorists’demands.

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Why “Suicide”?Suicide terrorists’ willingness to die magni-

fies the coercive effects of punishment in threeways. First, suicide attacks are generally moredestructive than other terrorist attacks. Anattacker who is willing to die is much morelikely to accomplish the mission and to causemaximum damage to the target. Suicideattackers can conceal weapons on their ownbodies and make last-minute adjustmentsmore easily than ordinary terrorists. For exam-ple, the Jordanian suicide bombings ofNovember 2005 involved a husband and wifeteam; the wife’s bomb failed to detonate, butshe told investigators that her husband wasable to alter his focus when her bomb failed togo off.13 Suicide terrorists are better able toinfiltrate heavily guarded targets because theydo not need escape plans or rescue teams.They can use certain especially destructive tac-tics such as “suicide vests” and ramming vehi-cles into targets. The 315 suicide terroristattacks that occurred from 1980 to 2003 killedan average of 12 people each, not counting theattackers or the unusually large number offatalities on September 11, and account for 48percent of all deaths caused by terrorism dur-ing the period, even though they constituteonly 3 percent of all terrorist attacks.14 Someof the deadliest attacks of the last two yearshave been carried out by suicide terrorists. Forexample, suicide attacks in Iraq have been par-ticularly destructive relative to other forms ofviolence. And there is good evidence from pastcases that suicide attacks are far more lethalthan ordinary strikes. A systematic survey ofdamage caused by Japanese air attacks on theU.S. Navy from October 1944 through August1945 found that Kamikaze missions were fourto five times more likely than conventionalmissions to damage or sink their targets.15

A second way in which suicide increasesthe coercive effects of terrorism is through itssignaling of the likelihood of more pain tocome if the target government fails to makeconcessions. Suicide is an especially convinc-ing signal of future intent because it suggeststhat the attackers could not have beendeterred, and future attackers will not be, by

a threat of costly retaliation. Although thecapture, conviction, and execution of Tim-othy McVeigh gave reason for some confi-dence that others with similar political viewsmight be deterred, the deaths of the Septem-ber 11 hijackers did not, because Americanswould have to expect that future al-Qaedaattackers would be equally willing to die.

Organizations that sponsor suicide attackscan also deliberately orchestrate the circum-stances around the death of a suicide attackerto further increase expectations of futureattacks. This might be called the “art of mar-tyrdom.” The more that suicide terrorists justi-fy their actions on the basis of religious or ide-ological motives that match the beliefs of abroader national community, the more the sta-tus of terrorist martyrs is elevated, and themore plausible it becomes that others will fol-low in their footsteps. Suicide terrorist organi-zations commonly cultivate “sacrificial myths”that include elaborate sets of symbols and ritu-als to mark an individual attacker’s death as acontribution to the nation. In addition, suicideattackers’ families often receive materialrewards both from the terrorist organizationsand from other supporters.16

Third, suicide terrorist organizations arebetter positioned than other groups thatemploy terrorist tactics to increase expecta-tions about escalating future costs by delib-erately violating norms in the use of violence.They can do this by crossing thresholds ofdamage, by breaching taboos concerninglegitimate targets, and by broadening recruit-ment to confound expectations about limitson the number of possible terrorists.

Targeting DemocraciesPrevious analyses of suicide terrorism

have never had the benefit of a comprehen-sive survey of all suicide terrorist attacksworldwide over an extended period of time.The lack of complete data together with thefact that many such attacks—including allthose against Americans—have been commit-ted by Muslims has led many in the UnitedStates to assume that Islamic fundamental-ism must be the underlying main cause.17

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The 315 suicideterrorist attacksthat occurredfrom 1980 to2003 account for48 percent of alldeaths caused byterrorism duringthat period, eventhough they constitute only 3 percent of all terrorist attacks.

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That, in turn, has fueled a belief that anti-American terrorism can be stopped only bywholesale transformation of Muslim soci-eties. That was one of the primary justifica-tions employed by the Bush administrationto build public support of the invasion ofIraq, and it remains a central objective of U.S.strategy, particularly in the Middle East andSouth Asia. Comprehensive study of the phe-nomenon of suicide terrorism, however,shows that the presumed connection toIslamic fundamentalism is misleading.

The research presented in my book Dyingto Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,was based on a complete dataset of suicideterrorist attacks around the globe from 1980to 2003. Using hundreds of reports in native-language newspapers, computer databases,and expert analyses, the survey counted everyinstance in which at least one terrorist killedhimself or herself while attempting to killothers. Attacks authorized by national gov-ernments, such as those by North Koreaagainst the South and Iranian human waveattacks in the Iran-Iraq war, were excluded.18

Overall, there were 315 separate suicide ter-rorist attacks from 1980 to 2003, and theseoccurred in a variety of countries, includingLebanon, Israel, Turkey, India, Sri Lanka,Chechnya, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Algeria,Yemen, and the United States.

The data showed that all suicide terroristcampaigns have in common a specific secularand strategic goal: to compel democracies towithdraw military forces from territory thatthe terrorists value. Religion is rarely the rootcause, although it is often used as a tool byterrorist organizations in recruiting and inother efforts in service of the broader strate-gic objective.

Three general patterns in the data supportthe conclusion that suicide terrorism is main-ly a strategic phenomenon. As I explained inDying to Win, these three properties are consis-tent with the above strategic logic but not withirrational behavior or religious fanaticism:

1. Timing: nearly all suicide attacks occurin organized, coherent campaigns, not

as isolated or randomly timed incidents; 2. Territorial goals: suicide terrorist cam-

paigns are directed at gaining control ofwhat the terrorists see as their nationalhomeland territory, and specifically atejecting foreign forces from that territo-ry; and

3. Target selection: suicide terrorist cam-paigns in the last two decades have beenaimed at democracies, which makemore suitable targets from the terror-ists’ point of view. Nationalist move-ments that face nondemocratic oppo-nents have not resorted to suicideattack as a means of coercion.

This study incorporates new informationfrom the past two years to further refine theargument set forward in Dying to Win. I findthat suicide terrorism continues to follow astrategic logic, but that the motivations of theindividual attackers, and the intended targetsfor coercion, have evolved—with importantimplications for counterterrorism strategiesgoing forward.

TimingA suicide terrorist campaign can be distin-

guished from isolated attacks if it consists ofan intended series of attacks that terroristleaders explain and justify as aimed at gain-ing political concessions from a target gov-ernment, and that continues until the terror-ist leaders deliberately abandon the effort,either because sufficient gains have beenattained or because they’ve become con-vinced that the effort has failed.

Of the 315 separate suicide terrorist attacksbetween 1980 and 2003, 301, or 95 percent,were parts of organized, coherent campaigns,whereas only 14 were isolated or randomevents. Nine separate disputes led to suicide ter-rorist campaigns during this period: the pres-ence of American and French forces inLebanon, Israeli occupation of the West Bankand Gaza, the independence of the Tamilregions of Sri Lanka, the independence of theKurdish region of Turkey, Russian occupationof Chechnya, Indian occupation of Kashmir,

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Of the 315 separate suicideterrorist attacks

between 1980 and 2003,

301 were parts of organized, coher-

ent campaigns,whereas only 14

were isolatedevents.

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Indian control of Punjab, and the presence ofAmerican forces in Iraq and the Persian Gulfregion. These nine disputes gave rise to 18 dis-tinct campaigns, because in certain disputes theterrorists elected to suspend operations one ormore times either in response to concessions orfor other reasons. Since 2003, we have seen acontinuation of many of these campaigns,namely by al-Qaeda, the Tamil Tigers, Chechenrebels, and the Palestinians (Islamic Jihad andHamas). In addition, Iraqi rebels are engaged ina campaign in response to the presence ofAmerican forces in Iraq and the Persian Gulf,and a new dispute—the presence of Westernforces in Afghanistan—has given rise to a newsuicide terrorism campaign. The destructiveeffects of that campaign have been felt almostentirely by the Afghan people, but the coerciveeffect is intended for the Western democracieswith troops in the country.

From the 1980 to 2003 data, I found thatthe attacks comprising each campaign wereorganized by the same terrorist group (or,sometimes, a set of cooperating groups, as inthe ongoing “second intifada” in Israel/Palestine), clustered in time, publicly justifiedin terms of a specified political goal, and direct-ed against targets related to that goal. For thelast two years, that has generally remained true,though the evidence is far from clear given thatthe four known suicide terrorist groups in thecase of Iraq claimed credit for only 40 percentof suicide attacks in that country.19 Murkyinformation on the identity of suicide attack-ers is normal in the immediate aftermath ofthe attacks. Suicide terrorist groups inLebanon, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere commonlyprovide our best information about the identi-ty of the attackers, but often years afterwards,in order to safeguard the security of their ongo-ing operations.

The most important indicator of the strate-gic orientation of suicide terrorists is the timingof the suspension of campaigns, which is mostoften based on a strategic decision by leaders ofthe terrorist organizations that further attackswould be counterproductive to their coercivepurposes—for instance, in response to full orpartial concessions by the target state to the ter-

rorists’ political goals. Such suspensions areoften accompanied by public explanations thatjustify the decision to opt for a cease-fire.Furthermore, the terrorist organizations’ disci-pline is usually fairly good. Although there areexceptions, such announced cease-fires usuallystick for a period of months at least, normallyuntil the terrorist leaders make a new strategicdecision to resume in pursuit of goals notachieved in the earlier campaign. That patternindicates that both terrorist leaders and theirrecruits are sensitive to the coercive value of theattacks.

If suicide terrorism were mainly irrationalor even disorganized, we would expect amuch different pattern, in which politicalgoals were not articulated (for example, refer-ences in news reports to rogue attacks) or inwhich the stated goals would vary consider-ably even within the same conflict. We wouldalso expect the timing to be either random orevent-driven in response to particularlyprovocative or infuriating actions by theother side, but little if at all related to theprogress of negotiations over issues in dis-pute that the terrorists want to influence.That is not the pattern that we see in the dataon suicide terrorism.

Territorial GoalSuicide terrorism is a costly strategy, one

that would only make strategic sense for agroup when high interests are at stake and,even then, as a last resort. Suicide terrorismmaximizes coercive leverage at the expense ofsupport among the terrorists’ own commu-nity and so can be sustained over time onlywhen there already exists a high degree ofcommitment among the potential pool ofrecruits. The most important goal that acommunity can have is the independence ofits homeland (population, property, and wayof life) from foreign influence or control. Asa result, a strategy of suicide terrorism ismost likely to be used to achieve nationalistgoals, such as gaining control of what the ter-rorists see as their national homeland territo-ry and expelling foreign military forces fromthat territory.

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Suicide terrorism can be sustained over time onlywhen therealready exists ahigh degree of commitmentamong the potential pool ofrecruits.

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Every suicide campaign between 1980 and2003, including the five that were ongoing asof December 2003, had as a major objective—or as its central objective—forcing a foreigngovernment to remove its military forcesfrom territory prized by the terrorists. No sui-cide campaign has ever been waged againstopponents who did not have military forceson territory that is important to the terror-ists. Although attacks against civilians areoften the most salient to Western observers,every suicide terrorist campaign that I stud-ied between 1980 and 2003 has includedattacks directly against the foreign militaryforces in the country, and most have beenwaged by guerrilla organizations that alsouse more conventional methods of attackagainst those forces.

Even al-Qaeda fits this pattern. A majorobjective of al-Qaeda is the expulsion of U.S.troops from Muslim lands, and there have beenfrequent attacks by terrorists loyal to OsamaBin Laden against American troops there. To besure, there is a major debate among Islamistsover the morality of suicide attacks, but there islittle debate over al-Qaeda’s objection toAmerican forces in the region. A poll taken bythe Saudi government in 2002 found that over90 percent of Saudis agreed with bin Laden thatforeign forces should be expelled from theArabian peninsula.20

Within the past two years, individuals whoare not personally suffering under foreignoccupation have carried out terrorist attacksout of sympathy to the plight of a kindredgroup. The 7/7 bombers in London, and atleast some of the foreign fighters entering Iraqto wage suicide attacks, fit this profile.Although much is still unknown about theparticipants in the failed plot to blow up air-liners in August 2006, those individuals—largely Britons of Pakistani descent—exhibitsome of the same characteristics. Individualswith dual loyalties joined in a wider campaign,hoping to coerce democratic societies intochanging their policies, out of a sense ofnational identification with the plight of kin-dred groups under foreign military occupa-tion. This is an important development that

extends the strategic logic of suicide terrorismbeyond those with personal experience of for-eign combat presence on homeland territory.It shows that deep anger at the use of foreigncombat forces to suppress national self-deter-mination by kindred groups is sufficient toinspire self-sacrifice to protect those commu-nities, even when personal motives for revengeare completely absent.

Even if suicide terrorism follows a strategiclogic, could some suicide terrorist campaignsbe irrational in the sense that they are beingwaged for unrealistic goals? It is true thatsome suicide terrorist groups have not beenrealistic in expecting the full concessionsdemanded of the target, but this is normal fordisputes involving overlapping nationalistclaims, which are often seen as indivisible byboth sides. Rather, the ambitions of terroristleaders are realistic in two other senses. First,while suicide terrorists’ methods are extreme,the political goals quite often reflect common,straightforward nationalist self-determina-tion claims of their community. Second, thesegroups often have significant support for theirpolicy goals versus the target state, goalswhich are typically much the same as those ofother nationalists within their community.Differences between the terrorists and more“moderate” leaders usually concern the useful-ness of a certain level of violence and, some-times, the legitimacy of attacking additionaltargets besides foreign troops in the country,such as attacks in other countries or againstthird parties and civilians. Thus, it is not thatterrorists pursue radical goals and then seekothers’ support. Rather, terrorists are simplythe members of their societies who are themost optimistic about the usefulness of vio-lence for achieving goals that many, and oftenmost, support.

The behavior of Hamas illustrates thepoint. While pursuing the apparently unreal-istic goal of abolishing the state of Israel,Hamas terrorism has provoked Israeli retalia-tion that has been costly for Palestinians.Prospects of establishing an Arab state in allof “historic Palestine” may be poor, and mostPalestinians agree that a two-state solution

8

No suicide campaign has

ever been waged against

opponents whodid not have

military forces onterritory that is

important to theterrorists.

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would be desirable.21 Hamas’s terrorist vio-lence was carefully calculated and controlledto achieve specific intermediate objectives. InApril 1994, as its first suicide campaign wasbeginning, Hamas leaders explained that“martyrdom operations” would be used toobtain an Israeli withdrawal from the WestBank and Gaza and noted that the finalobjective of creating an Islamic state from theJordan River to the Mediterranean mightlater require other forms of armed resis-tance.22

Democracies as the TargetsSuicide terrorism is more likely to be used

against states with democratic political sys-tems than authoritarian governments forthree reasons. First, democracies are oftenthought to be especially vulnerable to coer-cive punishment. Domestic critics and inter-national rivals, as well as terrorists, often viewdemocracies as “soft,” usually on the groundsthat their publics have low thresholds of costtolerance and a high ability to affect statepolicy.23 Even if there is little evidence thatdemocracies are easier to coerce than otherregime types,24 this image of democracy mat-ters. Since terrorists can inflict only moder-ate damage in comparison to even smallinterstate wars, terrorism can be expected tocoerce only if the target state is viewed asespecially vulnerable to punishment.

With respect to suicide terrorism in Iraqover the past three and a half years, the pun-ishment is most often endured by the Iraqipeople, but the coercive effect is intendedboth for the nascent Iraqi democracy, and themature American one. Americans who feel amoral obligation to leave Iraq in a better statethan when we removed Saddam Husseinfrom power in April of 2003 despair over thehorrific losses inflicted on the Iraqi people.U.S. personnel—both civilian and military—have also been targeted by suicide bombers,but force protection for the military as well asthe nearly impenetrable fortress known asthe Green Zone in Baghdad provide consid-erable protection for American personnelagainst suicide (and other) forms of attack.

Those strategies for reducing the threat ofterrorism have had harmful unintendedeffects, limiting the ability of U.S. personnelto interact on a regular basis with the Iraqipeople and impeding the success of recon-struction activities, but they have enabledmost Americans to escape the worst ravagesof the ongoing suicide terrorism campaign.25

Yet, such attacks still have coercive effects,specifically on the U.S. public. If suicide ter-rorists can cause sectarian violence to spreadin Iraq and therefore significantly increasethe costs to American personnel there and totaxpayers at home, they could cause the pub-lic’s cost-benefit calculus to change enoughto lead to a withdrawal of foreign troopsfrom Iraqi soil. Indeed, this may already behappening.

In the meantime, the Iraqi people haveborne the brunt of the concerted suicide ter-rorism campaign in their country. SomeIraqis have simply chosen to leave the coun-try. For those who remain, many are willing tosacrifice some of their new-found freedoms inexchange for greater security, and a few havecalled on the fledgling Iraqi government toreestablish autocracy. Others have reacted tothe terrorist campaign by forming ethnicmilitias, which have, in turn, engaged inrevenge killings and other forms of violence,all actions that have undermined the legiti-macy and power of the Iraqi government.

The second reason why suicide terrorism ismore likely to be employed against democra-cies than authoritarian governments reflects acalculation of likely costs and perceived bene-fits. Suicide terrorism is a tool of the weak,which means that regardless of how muchpunishment the terrorists inflict, the targetstate almost always has the capacity to retali-ate with far more extreme punishment or evenby exterminating the terrorists’ community.Accordingly, suicide terrorists must not onlyhave high interests at stake, they must also beconfident that their opponent will be at leastsomewhat restrained. Democracies are widelyperceived as less likely to harm civilians, andno democratic regime has committed geno-cide in the 20th century, although recent

9

Suicide terrorists couldcause the public’scost-benefit calculus tochange enough to lead to a withdrawal offoreign troopsfrom Iraqi soil.

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scholarship casts strong doubt on the pre-sumption that democracies are generally morerestrained than authoritarian states.26

In fact, the target state of every modernsuicide campaign has been a democracy. TheUnited States, France, Israel, India, Sri Lanka,Turkey, and Russia were all democracieswhen they were attacked by suicide terroristcampaigns, even though the last threebecame democracies more recently than theothers. To be sure, these states vary in thedegree to which they share “liberal” normsthat respect minority rights; Freedom Houserates Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Russia as “partlyfree” (3.5–4.5 on a 7-point scale) rather than“free” during the relevant years, partly forthis reason and partly because terrorism andcivil violence themselves lower the freedomrating of those states. Still, all of those stateselect their chief executives and legislatures inmultiparty elections and have seen at leastone peaceful transfer of power, making themsolidly democratic by standard criteria.27

The Kurdish nation, which straddles Turkeyand Iraq, illustrates the point that suicide terror-ist campaigns are more likely to be targetedagainst democracies than authoritarian regimes.Although Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was far morebrutal toward its Kurdish population than wasTurkey, violent Kurdish groups used suicideattacks exclusively against democratic Turkeyand not against the authoritarian regime in Iraq.There are plenty of national groups living underauthoritarian regimes with grievances that couldpossibly inspire suicide terrorism, but none have.Thus, the fact that rebels have resorted to thisstrategy only when they face the more suitabletype of target (i.e., a democracy), counts againstarguments that suicide terrorism is a nonstrate-gic response, motivated mainly by fanaticism orirrational hatreds.

Al-Qaeda’s Strategic Logic

Many Americans ask how Muslims, many ofwhom are middle class and well educated, cankill themselves to kill Americans and others inthe West. The answer is both simple and dis-

turbing: it is because of deep anger over Westerncombat forces in the Persian Gulf region andother predominantly Muslim lands.

From 2002 to the end of 2005, al-Qaeda car-ried out more than 17 suicide and other terror-ist bombings that killed nearly 700 people—more attacks and victims than in all the yearsbefore 9/11 combined. Although many peoplehoped that Western counterterrorism effortswould have weakened al-Qaeda, by the mea-sure that counts—the ability of the group to kill us—al-Qaeda is stronger today than before 9/11. Aswe shall see, the London suicide terrorist attackon July 7, 2005, and the attempted bombingstwo weeks later, stem closely from al-Qaeda’sstrategic logic, which seeks to expel foreignoccupiers from the Arabian peninsula andAfghanistan. Furthermore, al-Qaeda’s effortsto mobilize American “home-grown” suicideattackers and others to kill Americans are dri-ven principally by this same strategic logic.Though there is no denying that al-Qaedadeploys the rhetoric of Islamic fundamental-ism to recruit potential followers, its immedi-ate goals are fundamentally political in nature.

To make sense of al-Qaeda’s campaignagainst the United States and its allies, I com-piled data on the 71 terrorists who killedthemselves between 1995 and 2004 in carry-ing out attacks sponsored by Osama binLaden’s network. This study was able to col-lect the names, nationalities and detaileddemographic information on 67 of thesebombers, data which provides insight intothe underlying causes of al-Qaeda’s suicideterrorism and how the group’s strategy hasevolved since 2001.

Most important, the figures show that al-Qaeda is today less a product of Islamic fun-damentalism than of a simple strategic goal:to compel the United States and its Westernallies to withdraw combat forces from theArabian Peninsula and other Muslim coun-tries. Over two thirds of al-Qaeda suicideattackers have been nationals from predomi-nantly Sunni Muslim countries, especiallySaudi Arabia, other states on the ArabianPeninsula, and Afghanistan. Few are frommany of the world’s most populous Islamic

10

There are plenty of national

groups livingunder authoritar-

ian regimes withgrievances thatcould possiblyinspire suicideterrorism, but

none have.

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fundamentalist countries. Sudan—an Islamicfundamentalist country with a populationalmost the same size as Saudi Arabia—hasnever produced an al-Qaeda suicide terrorist.Iran—whose population of 70 million peopleis steeped in Islamic fundamentalism and isthree times the size of Saudi Arabia—hasnever produced one either. Iraqis, Shiite andSunni alike, have similarly resisted al-Qaeda’sappeals. The first case of an Iraqi waging asuicide attack outside of Iraq occurred inJordan in November of 2005.

Even the one third of al-Qaeda suicideattackers who are transnational in nature (inother words, are not drawn from al-Qaeda’sArabian core) are powerfully motivated byanger over Western combat operationsagainst kindred groups. The 7/7 bombers insome ways complicate the picture. The indi-viduals who committed the London suicideattacks would surely be considered part of al-Qaeda’s transnational support. The attack-ers, mostly British citizens of Pakistaniextraction, were not ethnically related tothose suffering under foreign occupation.They were, however, individuals with dualloyalties, and sympathy with the plight ofcoreligionists suffering under foreign mili-tary occupation played a powerful role in thesuicide bombers’ motivations. Here, asbefore, the pivotal motivation was foreignoccupation of a territory prized by the terror-ists. And here, as before, suicide terrorismwas seen as an effective weapon with which tocoerce the democratic nation(s) occupyingthe prized territory.

First, the al-Qaeda group that claimedresponsibility for the London attacks said thatthey were intended to punish Great Britain forits military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.The al-Qaeda statement was released justhours after the July 7 attack and went on tothreaten Italy and Denmark with terroristattacks if those states “did not withdraw theirtroops from Iraq and Afghanistan.”28

Second, Hussein Osman, one of the fourwould-be July 21 bombers captured in Rome,said in his interrogation by Italian authorities:“Religion had nothing to do with this . . . . We

were shown videos with images of the war inIraq.”29

Third, Mohammad Sidique Kahn, theringleader of the July 7 bombers, made avideo that al-Qaeda released several monthsafter that attack. In it, Kahn says that thepurpose of the London attacks was to punishBritain because its “democratically electedgovernments continuously perpetrate atroci-ties against my people all over the world . . . .Until you stop the bombing, gassing, impris-onment and torture of my people we will notstop this fight.”30

Divided Loyalties and Nationalism Although the airline bombing plot in

August 2006 was thwarted, the arrest anddetention of at least 26 individuals in the UKreveals that more than a year after the 7/7attacks, British Muslims still identify with theplight of kindred groups suffering under for-eign occupation and are willing to engage insuicide terrorism to effect a change in Britishpolicy. And yet, such sentiments should not beblown out of proportion. When the BritishHome Office conducted a detailed survey ofthe attitudes of the 1.6 million Muslims livingin Britain in April 2004, it found that between8 and 13 percent believed that more suicideattacks against the United States and the Westwere justified. These numbers are troublingenough, but they also reveal the limits of divid-ed loyalties: according to the report, “the greatmajority of British Muslims (up to 85%)regarded the attacks on western targets, includ-ing the 9/11 attacks, as unjustified.”31

Among those who endorsed suicide ter-rorism, the survey went further to identifythe specific reason—Iraq. In other words, theprincipal factor driving support for suicideterrorism among radicalized British Muslimswas not “Islamo-Fascism,” but deep angerover British military policies in the PersianGulf region, policies which were seen asdeeply harmful to a kindred ethnic group.

The pool of would-be al-Qaeda suicideterrorists is drawn from one of two groups:individuals who suffer or perceive personalharm or humiliation as a result of foreign

11

Though al-Qaeda deploysthe rhetoric ofIslamic funda-mentalism torecruit potentialfollowers, its immediategoals are fundamentallypolitical innature.

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military occupation, and individuals whosuffer no personal ill-effects from foreignoccupation but who identify with the plightof a kindred group that does. This suggests asimple implication for the security of theUnited States: if al-Qaeda’s truly transnation-al support were to dry up tomorrow, thegroup would remain a robust threat to theUnited States. However, if al-Qaeda no longerdrew recruits from the Muslim countrieswhere there is an American combat presence,the remaining transnational network wouldpose a far smaller threat and might well sim-ply collapse.32

Al-Qaeda’s Other GoalsAlthough al-Qaeda leaders may harbor

other goals—such as establishing an Islamicfundamentalist state—the history of suicideterrorism shows it is unlikely the groupwould be able to achieve that purposethrough the use of suicide attacks. Over thepast two decades, there have been 18 suicideterrorist campaigns and not a single one hasbeen waged by terrorist groups in the offen-sive pursuit of territory, either to conquer thenational homeland territory of another com-munity or to establish a political system onthe territory the terrorists prize. Instead, everysuicide terrorist campaign since 1980 hasbeen waged for defensive control of territory,to establish self-determination for a commu-nity facing the presence of foreign combatforces.

That is true even when suicide terrorismhas produced impressive political gains for theterrorist group. For instance, after Hezbollah’ssuicide attacks compelled American, French,and Israeli forces to abandon territory insouthern Lebanon, Hezbollah suicide attack-ers did not follow the Americans to New York,the French to Paris, or the Israelis to Tel Aviv.Indeed, after Israel’s military forces completelyabandoned Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah sui-cide attacks stopped completely and have notresumed to this day. To be sure, Hezbollahremains committed to establishing an Islamicfundamentalist state. However, there is no evi-dence—even after 18 years of suicide attacks to

eject foreign forces from Lebanon—thatHezbollah is likely to use suicide attacks forthat purpose.

Understanding more about the strategiclogic of suicide terrorism helps to explain whythat is. Suicide terrorists—for al-Qaeda,Hezbollah, and all other groups using this tac-tic—are overwhelmingly walk-in volunteers,not long-time members of terrorist groups.They are not produced in madrassas; fewerthan a half dozen of the 462 suicide terroristsin this study fit that description. Suicide ter-rorism is mainly a demand-driven, not a sup-ply-manufactured, phenomenon, and there isone principal motive driving individuals totake up that mission, which stands head andshoulders above the rest: deep anger at thepresence of foreign combat forces on territorythat the terrorists prize. Some individualattackers prize the territory for secular rea-sons. Some for religious reasons. It is commonfor nationalist sentiments to blend secularand religious commitments to territory.However, the important point is that were itnot for deep anger at the presence of foreigncombat forces, suicide terrorism would be anexceedingly rare phenomenon.

War on America’s AlliesA closer look at al-Qaeda’s suicide terrorist

campaign against the United States and itsallies in 2002 and 2003 helps to clarify thestrategic logic guiding their operations. AsTable 1 shows, what is common across al-Qaeda suicide attacks since 9/11 is neithertheir geographic location nor the nationalityof the attacker, but rather the identity of thevictims killed; al-Qaeda has killed citizensfrom 18 of the 20 countries that Osama binLaden has cited as supporting the Americaninvasions of Afghanistan and Iraq—but dur-ing that same period, al-Qaeda has not con-ducted a successful terrorist attack either onU.S. soil, nor has it—with the notable excep-tion of the July 2003 bombing of the MarriottHotel in Jakarta—conducted an attack againsta predominantly American target.

There is good evidence that the shift in al-Qaeda’s targeting scheme since 9/11 was the

12

Not a single “terrorist

campaign” hasbeen waged by

terrorist groupsin the offensive

pursuit of territory.

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product of deliberate choice. In December2003, the Norwegian intelligence service foundan al-Qaeda planning document on a radicalIslamic web page that described a coherentstrategy for compelling the United States andits allies to leave Iraq. The 42-page document,dated September 2003, assumed that newspectacular attacks directed against the UnitedStates would be insufficient to compelAmerica to change its policies. Instead, the doc-ument advised that attacks be directed atAmerica’s European allies, who could becoerced to withdraw their forces, thus increas-ing the economic and other burdens that theUnited States would have to bear in order tocontinue the occupations of Afghanistan, Iraq,and the Arabian peninsula.

The document went on to evaluate theprospects of using spectacular terrorist attacksto coerce Spain, Great Britain, and Poland towithdraw from Iraq and concluded thatSpain—due to the high level of domestic oppo-sition to the Iraq war—was the most vulnera-

ble. The document recommended strikesagainst Spain just before the March 2004national elections. Below are important pas-sages from the analysis of the likely outcome ofterrorist attacks in Spain:

In order to force the Spanish govern-ment to withdraw from Iraq the resis-tance should deal painful blows to itsforces. This should be accompanied byan information campaign clarifyingthe truth of the matter inside Iraq. It isnecessary to make utmost use of theupcoming general election in Spain inMarch next year.

We think that the Spanish govern-ment could not tolerate more thantwo, maximum three blows, afterwhich it will have to withdraw as aresult of popular pressure. If its troopsstill remain in Iraq after these blows,then the victory of the Socialist Party isalmost secured, and the withdrawal of

13

Table 1Al-Qaeda vs. United States and Allies, 2002–03

Date Weapon Target Killed Identity of Victims

1. April 11, 2002 Car Bomb Synagogue, Djerba, Tunisia 21 14 Germans, and 1 French national2. May 8, 2002 Car Bomb Sheraton Hotel, Karachi 14 11 French nationals3. June 16, 2002 Car Bomb US Consulate, Karachi 12 Local residents working w/U.S.4. Oct 6, 2002 Boat Bomb French Oil Tanker, Yemen 1 1 French national5. Oct 12, 2002 Car Bomb Nightclub, Bali, Indonesia 202 88 Australians, 25 British6. Nov 28, 2002 Car Bomb Hotel, Mombasa, Kenya 13 3 Israelis7. May 12, 2003 3 Car Bombs Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 34 8 Americans, plus a number of other

Westerners8. May 16, 2003 Car Bombs Casablanca, Morocco 31 French, Spanish, and Italians9. June 7, 2003 Car Bomb German Military Bus, Kabul 4 4 Germans10. Aug 5, 2003 Car Bomb Jakarta, Indonesia 15 Western tourists11. Nov 8, 2003 Car Bomb Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 17 Arabs working with the U.S.12. Nov 15, 2003 2 Car Bombs 2 synagogues, Istanbul, Turkey 31 9 Turkish nationals13. Nov 20, 2003 2 Truck Bombs British Embassy, Istanbul Turkey 25 British nationals and Turks working with

the UK14. Dec 25, 2003 2 Truck Bombs Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf 14 Government Allied to U.S.15. Dec 28, 2003 Car Bomb Airport, Kabul 5 European Troops

Note: Victims came from 18 of 20 countries OBL cites as supporting US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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the Spanish forces will be on its elec-toral program.

Lastly, we are emphasise (sic) that awithdrawal of the Spanish or Italianforces from Iraq would put huge pres-sure on the British presence (in Iraq), apressure that Toni (sic) Blair might notbe able to withstand, and hence thedomino tiles would fall quickly. Yet,the basic problem of making the firsttile fall still remains.33

Although they did not employ suicide tac-tics, terrorists did strike trains in Madrid inMarch 2004, carrying out a coordinatedseries of bombings in which 190 people werekilled and more than 2,000 injured. Soonthereafter, Spain did withdraw its forces fromIraq, just as the document predicted.

Shortly after Spain’s decision to withdrawfrom Iraq, bin Laden issued a statement inwhich he offered to cease attacks on Europeancountries that withdrew their forces from Iraqand Afghanistan. On April 15, 2004, binLaden said: “I hereby offer [the Europeans] apeace treaty, the essence of which is our com-mitment to halt actions against any countrythat commits itself to refraining from attack-ing Muslims or intervening in their affairs . . . .The peace treaty will be in force upon the exitof the last soldier of any given [European]country from our land.”

Bin Laden then taunted his Western audi-ence:

As for those who lie to people and saythat we hate freedom and kill for thesake of killing—reality proves that weare the speakers of truth and they lie,because the killing of the Russianstook place only after their invasion ofAfghanistan and Chechnya; the killingof the Europeans took place only afterthe invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan;the killing of the Americans in theBattle of New York took place onlyafter their support for the Jews inPalestine and their invasion of theArabian Peninsula.

He concluded with a chilling but simple offer:“Stop shedding our blood in order to protectyour own blood.”34 Officially, European statesrejected bin Laden’s offer. However, the num-ber of European states leaving Iraq has beengrowing ever since.

The July 7, 2005, London attacks werepart of al-Qaeda’s new strategy. Indeed, al-Qaeda issued a statement specifically linkingthe London attacks to British operations inIraq and Afghanistan and warned Italy andDemark to pull their forces out or face thesame threat of terror.

The bottom line, then, is that al-Qaeda hasnot been fundamentally weakened in terms ofits ability to coerce democratic governmentsto change their policies. Since 2001 al-Qaedahas concentrated on those U.S. allies most vul-nerable to coercion and has achieved a signifi-cant degree of success in dividing the West andpeeling away key support. Hence, far frombeing discouraged, the past few years are likelyto have encouraged Osama bin Laden andother al-Qaeda leaders in the belief that theywill ultimately succeed in their ultimate aim:causing the United States and its allies to with-draw military forces from the Persian Gulfregion.

Indeed, Americans should take little com-fort in the knowledge that al-Qaeda has decid-ed to focus over the past few years on hittingU.S. military allies. As of 2006, this compo-nent of al-Qaeda’s strategy has nearly run itscourse and was always viewed as a step towardadding more pressure on the United States byincreasing the military and economic burdenof keeping U.S. troops in Iraq and the rest ofthe Arabian peninsula. Furthermore, a state-ment released by Osama bin Laden on January19, 2006, suggests that al-Qaeda may now beshifting from a focus on American allies backto its main target, the United States, and toAmerican targets around the world. Using lan-guage similar to the 2003 document found byNorwegian intelligence, bin Laden says thatalthough al-Qaeda has recently focused on“the capitals of the most important Europeancountries of the aggressive coalition” in Iraq,“operations are in preparation” to carry out

14

What is commonacross al-Qaeda

suicide attackssince 9/11 is

the identity of thevictims; al-Qaeda

has killed citizensfrom 18 of the 20

countries thatOsama bin Laden

has cited as supporting the

American invasions of

Afghanistan andIraq.

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“similar operations in America.”35 Given thatSpain withdrew its forces from Iraq in 2004and Britain and Italy both called for substan-tial withdrawals in 2006, it is hardly surprisingthat al-Qaeda believes that the time is right tofocus again on American targets.

Suicide Terrorism andDemocracy in Iraq

The strategic logic of suicide terrorismhelps to explain why this form of violence hascontinued unabated in Iraq. The brief lull inviolence after the nationwide elections inJanuary 2005 seemed to suggest that themarch of democracy was trampling the threatof terrorism. But as electoral politics has takenroot, the Iraqi insurgency and suicide terror-ism have actually gained momentum. Theelections in December 2005 were followed byan increase in violence, and that violence didnot abate even after a national unity govern-ment was formed in June 2006. Likewise,Iraqis have not witnessed a notable decrease inthe number of suicide attacks following thekilling of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musabal-Zarqawi, one of the chief instigators of sec-tarian violence through suicide attacks.

The rise of suicide terrorism in Iraq is aprime example of the strategic logic drivingthis phenomenon. Prior to the American andallied invasion in March 2003, Iraq had neverhad a suicide terrorist attack in its history.Since then, suicide terrorism has been dou-bling every year. Altogether in Iraq, there were20 suicide attacks in 2003, nearly 50 in 2004,and 125 in 2005.36

Much is made of the fact that we aren’tsure who the Iraqi suicide attackers are. Thatis not unusual in the early years of a suicideterrorist campaign. Hezbollah publishedmost of the biographies and last testamentsof its “martyrs” only after it abandoned thesuicide-attack strategy in 1986, a patternadopted by the Tamil Tigers as well.37

At the moment, our best informationindicates that the suicide attackers in Iraq areSunni Iraqis and foreign fighters, principally

from Saudi Arabia. The next largest groupappears to be from Syria, and then Kuwait.38

If so, this would mean that the main sourcesof suicide terrorists in Iraq are from Iraq itselfor from neighboring Arab countries mostlikely to sympathize with the plight of a kin-dred ethnic group, in this case Sunni Arabs.This is fully consistent with what we’velearned since 9/11 about the strategic logic ofsuicide terrorism.

Although the normal human impulse is tosympathize with the plight of those sufferingattacks, some may wonder if the rise of suicideterrorism in Iraq is necessarily detrimental toAmerican security. Is it not better to have thesekillers far away in Iraq rather than here in theUnited States? The answer is no— not so longas a large U.S. military force engaged in directcontact with these forces is contributing to asense of occupation within the wider popula-tion (and potentially sympathetic transna-tional communities as well). Leading U.S.intelligence officials consider the presence ofover 140,000 American combat troops in Iraqto be “the single most effective recruiting toolfor Islamic militants.”39 This is consistent withwhat we have seen in the past two decades. Thepresence of tens of thousands of Americancombat forces on the Arabian Peninsula after1990 was the primary motivating factor thatal-Qaeda used to recruit suicide terrorists.Those individuals, in turn, attacked Americanembassies in Africa in 1998, the destroyer USSCole in 2000, and the World Trade Center andPentagon on 9/11.

The longer this suicide terrorist campaigncontinues, the greater the risk of new attacksin the United States. A chilling harbinger is theNovember 2005 suicide attacks on Americanhotels in Jordan by four Iraqi suicide bombers—the first known case in which Iraqis haveconducted suicide attacks outside of Iraq.40

A New Strategy for Victory

The fact that suicide terrorism is mainly aresponse to foreign occupation rather than aproduct of Islamic fundamentalism has

15

Since 2001 al-Qaeda has concentrated onthose U.S. alliesmost vulnerableto coercion andhas achieved a significant degreeof success individing the West.

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important implications for how the UnitedStates and its allies should conduct the war onterrorism. Spreading democracy in the MiddleEast is not likely to be a panacea as long as for-eign combat troops remain in the region. Ifnot for the world’s interest in Persian Gulf oil,the obvious solution might well be to simplyto abandon the region altogether. Completedisengagement from the Middle East, howev-er, is not possible; America needs a new strate-gy that safeguards our vital interests in theregion, but does not stimulate the rise of a newgeneration of suicide terrorists.

Beyond recognizing the limits of militaryaction and stepping up domestic securityefforts, Americans and their major-power allieswould do well to recall the virtues of our tradi-tional policy of “offshore balancing” in thePersian Gulf. During the 1970s and 1980s, theWest managed its interests there without sta-tioning any combat soldiers on the ground,but by keeping our forces close enough—eitheron ships or in bases near the region—to deployin huge numbers in the event of an emergencythat posed a direct threat to U.S. vital interests.That worked splendidly to defeat Iraq’s aggres-sion against Kuwait in 1990.

Over the next year, the United States andits allies in Iraq should completely turn overthe responsibility for Iraq's security to Iraq’snew government and should start systemati-cally withdrawing troops. The overall goalshould be to complete the transition toward“offshore balancing” by the end of the Bushpresidency. But large numbers of these sol-diers should not simply be sent to Iraq’sneighbors, where they will continue to enragemany in the Arab world. Instead, U.S. policyshould focus on keeping the peace from adiscrete distance, minimizing the U.S. mili-tary footprint, and encouraging the othercountries in the region to play a constructiverole in stabilizing Iraq and in isolating anddefeating Islamic extremists.

Notes1. Important works in the large literature on ter-rorism include Martha Crenshaw, “The Causes of

Terrorism,” Comparative Politics 13, no. 4 (July 1981):379–99; Martha Crenshaw, ed., Terrorism in Context(State College, PA: Penn State University Press,1994); Brian Jenkins, International Terrorism: TheOther World War (Washington: RAND Corporation,1985); Paul Wilkinson, Terrorism and the Liberal State(New York: New York University Press, 1986);Walter Laqueur, The Age of Terrorism (Boston: Little,Brown, 1987); Walter Reich, ed., Origins of Terrorism(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990);Jerrold M. Post and Robert S. Robins, PoliticalParanoia: The Psychopolitics of Hatred (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1997); Bruce Hoffman, InsideTerrorism, rev. ed. (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 2006).

2. Robin Wright, Sacred Rage: The Wrath of MilitantIslam (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985). AlsoMartin Kramer, “The Moral Logic of Hizballah”;Ariel Merari, “The Readiness to Kill and Die:Suicidal Terrorism in the Middle East”; andJerrold M. Post, “Terrorist Psycho-Logic: TerroristBehavior as a Product of Psychological Forces,” allin Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies,Theologies, States of Mind, 2d ed., ed. Walter Reich,(Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press,1998).

3. See, for example, Countering Suicide Terrorism(Herzliya, Israel: International Policy Institute forCounter-Terrorism, 2001).

4. Ehud Sprinzak, “Rational Fanatics,” ForeignPolicy, September/October 2000, p. 66. See alsoMerari.

5. Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova, “DoesPoverty Cause Terrorism?” The New Republic, June24, 2002, pp. 27–33.

6. Marina Jimenez, “Infant Reported to Be Toolof Terror Scheme,” Globe and Mail, August 14,2006.

7. For a comprehensive review of the deficiencies ofefforts to profile terrorists, see Rex A. Hudson, TheSociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes aTerrorist and Why? (Washington: Federal ResearchDivision, Library of Congress, September 1999).Commenting on the September 11 suicide attack-ers, Israeli terrorism expert Ehud Sprinzak said,“This is what I’m increasingly afraid of. If educated,older men could go into the suicide cycle, why notprofessors, doctors, lawyers . . . It’s going to beincreasingly difficult to characterize psychological-ly,” Quoted in Shankar Vedantam, “Peer PressureSpurs Terrorists,” Washington Post, October 16,2001.

8. On the definition of terrorism, see Alex P. Schmidand Albert J. Jongman, Political Terrorism (New

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America needs astrategy that

safeguards ourvital interests in

the region butdoes not

stimulate the rise of a new

generation of suicide terrorists.

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Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988) and thelengthy discussion in the introduction to Patterns ofGlobal Terrorism (Washington: U.S. Department ofState, 2001). For contrasting views on the definitionof terrorism, see Timothy Garton Ash, “Is There aGood Terrorist?” The New York Review of Books 48,no.19 (November 29, 2001): 30–35. See alsoCrenshaw, ed., Terrorism in Context; and Omar Malik,“Enough of the Definition of Terrorism!” (London: RoyalInstitute of International Affairs, 2001).

9. For the definition of a suicide attack, seeRobert Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic ofSuicide Terrorism (New York: Random House,2005), p. 10; and Merari.

10. Hunger strikes and self-immolation are notordinarily considered acts of terrorism, and forgood reason. Their main purpose is to evokeunderstanding and sympathy from the targetaudience, but not to cause terror. For an interest-ing discussion of these and other tactics of moralpersuasion, see Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man andImmoral Society: A Study of Ethics and Politics(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press,2002), pp. 231–56. I would like to thank LloydRudolph for calling this to my attention.

11. For discussion of terrorism and catastrophicweapons, see Jessica Stern, The Ultimate Terrorists(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999);Robert Jay Lifton, Destroying the World to Save It (NewYork: Metropolitan Books, 1999); and Richard K.Betts, “The New Threat of Mass Destruction,” ForeignAffairs 77, no.1 (January/February 1998): 26–41.

12. Joel Greenberg, “Suicide Planner Expresses Joyover His Missions,” New York Times, May 9, 2002;World Islamic Front Statement, “Jihad againstJews and Crusaders,” February 23, 1998.

13. “Iraqi Woman Confesses to Role in JordanBlast,” Associated Press, November 13, 2005.

14. Counting 9/11 would make the average num-ber of deaths per attack 29. A total of 462 terror-ists perpetrated the attacks, but many were teamattacks involving multiple attackers.

15. Richard O’Neill, Suicide Squads: The Men andMachines of WWII Special Operations (Guilford, CT:Lyons Press, 2001), pp. 142–97.

16. Peter Schalk, “Resistance and Martyrdom in theProcess of State Formation of Tamil Eelam,” inJoyed Pettigrew, ed., Martyrdom and Political Resistance(Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1997), p. 76. Thephrase “art of martyrdom” originates from an LTTEleader in an interview with Schalk.

17. Richard Perle and David Frum, An End to Evil:

How to Win the War on Terror (New York: RandomHouse, 2003). See also Mark Juergensmeyer, “TheWorldwide Rise of Religious Nationalism,” Journalof International Affairs 50, no. 1 (Summer 1996).

18. The data for the survey are available from theChicago Project on Suicide Terrorism, Universityof Chicago. For more on the methodology, seePape.

19. These four groups are: al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia;Islamic Army in Iraq; First Four Caliphs Army; andVictorious Group’s Army.

20. Elaine Sciolino, “Saudi Warns Bush,” NewYork Times, January 27, 2002.

21. See, for example, a poll sponsored by theInternational Republican Institute, conducted byHirzeit University in April 2006, http://home.birzeit.edu/dsp/opinionpolls/poll25/analysis.html.

22. Khaled Hroub, Hamas: Political Thought andPractice (Washington: Institute for Palestine Studies,2000); Andrea Nusse, Muslim Palestine: The Ideology ofHamas (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 1998).

23. See Gil Merom, How Democracies Lose SmallWars: State, Society, and the Failures of France in Algeria,Israel in Lebanon, and the United States in Vietnam(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

24. Michael Horowitz and Dan Reiter, “When DoesAerial Bombing Work? Quantitative EmpiricalTests, 1917–1999,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 45(April 2001): 147–73.

25. See, for example, Thomas Ricks, Fiasco: TheAmerican Military Adventure in Iraq (New York:Penguin Press, 2006), pp. 206–8.

26. Alexander B. Downes, “Targeting Civilians inWar” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2004).

27. Adam Przeworski et al., Democracy and Development:Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950–1990(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000);Carles Boix and Sebastian Rosato, “A CompleteDataset of Regimes, 1850–1999” (unpublished manu-script, University of Chicago, 2001); Samuel P.Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the LateTwentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Okla-homa Press, 1991).

28. Elaine Sciolino, “The Ghosts of Madrid Stalkthe Bloodied Streets of London,” InternationalHerald Tribune, July 8, 2005.

29. David Leppard and John Follain, “ThirdTerror Cell on the Loose?” The Times (London),July 31, 2005.

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30. “London Bomber Video Aired on TV,” BBCNews, September 7, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4206708.stm.

31. “Draft Report on Young Muslims and Extrem-ism,” UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office/HomeOffice, April, 2004, p. 12, http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/report/2004/muslimext-uk. htm.

32. Political support for leaders, such as U.S. sup-port of Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, canalso serve as a catalyst for attacks, but it does nottrigger the same degree of hostility.

33. “Jihadi Iraq, Hopes and Dangers,” a documentdedicated to Yusuf al-Ayiri, a key al-Qaeda ideolo-gist and media coordinator killed in the May 2003attack in Riyadh, posted originally on a web pagecalled “Global Islamic Media,” and later posted onthe web page of the Forsvarets Forskningsinstitutt,the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment.Translated from the Arabic by the Chicago Project

on Suicide Terrorism.

34. “Special Dispatch No. 695,” The Middle EastMedia Research Institute, April 15, 2004.

35. Hassan Fattah, “Bin Laden Warns of Attacksin U.S. But Offers Truce,” New York Times, January20, 2006.

36. Lionel Beehner, “Iraq: Suicide Attacks,” TheCouncil on Foreign Relations, August 1, 2005.See also Michael O’Hanlon, “The Iraq Index,” TheBrookings Institution, July 31, 2006.

37. Pape, pp. 126–154.

38. Beehner.

39. Karen DeYoung, “Signs Point to a SurvivingTerror Network,” The Washington Post, August 11, 2006.

40. Brent Sadler, “Jordan Confirms Al QaedaBehind Hotel Blasts,” CNN, November 12, 2005.

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OTHER STUDIES IN THE POLICY ANALYSIS SERIES

581. Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors: 2006 by Stephen Slivinski (October 24, 2006)

580. The Libertarian Vote by David Boaz and David Kirby (October 18, 2006)

579. Giving Kids the Chaff: How to Find and Keep the Teachers We Needby Marie Gryphon (September 25, 2006)

578. Iran’s Nuclear Program: America’s Policy Options by Ted Galen Carpenter(September 20, 2006)

577. The American Way of War: Cultural Barriers to Successful Counterinsurgency by Jeffrey Record (September 1, 2006)

576. Is the Sky Really Falling? A Review of Recent Global Warming Scare Stories by Patrick J. Michaels (August 23, 2006)

575. Toward Property Rights in Spectrum: The Difficult Policy Choices Ahead by Dale Hatfield and Phil Weiser (August 17, 2006)

574. Budgeting in Neverland: Irrational Policymaking in the U.S. Congress and What Can Be Done about It by James L. Payne (July 26, 2006)

573. Flirting with Disaster: The Inherent Problems with FEMA by Russell S. Sobel and Peter T. Leeson (July 19, 2006)

572. Vertical Integration and the Restructuring of the U.S. Electricity Industryby Robert J. Michaels (July 13, 2006)

571. Reappraising Nuclear Security Strategy by Rensselaer Lee (June 14, 2006)

570. The Federal Marriage Amendment: Unnecessary, Anti-Federalist, and Anti-Democratic by Dale Carpenter (June 1, 2006)

569. Health Savings Accounts: Do the Critics Have a Point? by Michael F. Cannon (May 30, 2006)

568. A Seismic Shift: How Canada’s Supreme Court Sparked a Patients’ Rights Revolution by Jacques Chaoulli (May 8, 2006)

567. Amateur-to-Amateur: The Rise of a New Creative Culture by F. Gregory Lastowka and Dan Hunter (April 26, 2006)

566. Two Normal Countries: Rethinking the U.S.-Japan Strategic Relationship by Christopher Preble (April 18, 2006)

Page 20: Suicide Terrorism and Democracy - Cato Institute · the suicide attacks. Leaders of suicide terror-ist organizations have in fact come to believe that suicide attacks are an effective

565. Individual Mandates for Health Insurance: Slippery Slope to National Health Care by Michael Tanner (April 5, 2006)

564. Circumventing Competition: The Perverse Consequences of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by Timothy B. Lee (March 21, 2006)

563. Against the New Paternalism: Internalities and the Economics of Self-Control by Glen Whitman (February 22, 2006)

562. KidSave: Real Problem, Wrong Solution by Jagadeesh Gokhale and Michael Tanner (January 24, 2006)

561. Economic Amnesia: The Case against Oil Price Controls and Windfall Profit Taxes by Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren (January 12, 2006)

560. Failed States and Flawed Logic: The Case against a Standing Nation-Building Office by Justin Logan and Christopher Preble (January 11, 2006)

559. A Desire Named Streetcar: How Federal Subsidies Encourage Wasteful Local Transit Systems by Randal O’Toole (January 5, 2006)

558. The Birth of the Property Rights Movement by Steven J. Eagle (December 15, 2005)

557. Trade Liberalization and Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa by Marian L. Tupy (December 6, 2005)

556. Avoiding Medicare’s Pharmaceutical Trap by Doug Bandow (November 30,2005)

555. The Case against the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren (November 21, 2005)

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