suicide bomber

Definition and terminology

Kamikaze

Kamikaze was a term initially used for Japanese suicide pilots in World War II, but is occasionally used in other contexts.

For example, the 1972 Lod Airport massacre in Israel by the Japanese Red Army (JRA) was labelled by some reports at the time a "Kamikaze" attack, but others have criticized the label, including the surviving attacker's interpreter. The Kamikaze were a unit of suicide bombers of the Empire of Japan in WWII, which had a very different ideology to the JRA. Researchers from Duke University described the JRA's motives as "rooted in anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and anti-capitalism". In more recent reports the 1972 JRA attack on Lod airport is described in modern terms such as "suicide attack" and "suicide mission", even when referring to the attacker who survived. All three militants intended to die, but one survived. He confessed and hoped to be quickly executed, but some attribute this to retrospective "survivor guilt".

Suicide bombing

The term "suicide bombing" dates back to at least 1940 when a New York Times article mentioned the term in relation to German tactics. Less than two years later, the New York Times referred to a Japanese kamikaze attempt on an American carrier as a "suicide bombing". In 1945, The Times of London referred to a kamikaze plane as a "suicide-bomb". Two years later, it referred to a new British pilot-less, radio-controlled rocket missile as originally designed "as a counter-measure to the Japanese 'suicide-bomber'."

Labelling attacks as suicide

The definition of "suicide" in this context is also a matter of debate.

Suicide terrorism itself has been defined by Ami Pedahzur, a professor at the University of Haifa, as "violent actions perpetrated by people who are aware that the odds they will return alive are close to zero". Other sources exclude from their work "suicidal" or high risk attacks, such as the Lod Airport massacre or a "reckless charge in battle".

Despite the Lod Airport massacre being explicitly planned as a suicide attack, and modern mainstream Israeli and international media describing the event as a "suicide attack" or "suicide mission".

Yoram Schweitzer, from the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (an Israeli think tank), focuses only on true "suicide attacks", where the odds of survival are not "close to zero" but required to be zero, because "the perpetrator's ensured death is a precondition for the success of his mission".

The narrower definition would also exclude the actions of groups such as those by the Hashishiyeen, by the Moro juramentado, and in Aceh during WWII (see below).

Adam Lankford also excludes from the definition are "proxy bombings", which may have political goals and be designed to look like a suicide bombing. The difference is that the "proxy" is forced to carry a bomb under threat, or the proxy isn't fully aware that they are delivering a bomb that will kill them. The definition also generally excludes mass shootings in which the perpetrators commit suicide, as the shooter committing suicide is a separate act from shooting their victims.

Further distinction is how many of such shootings are driven by personal and psychological reasons, rather than political, social or religious motives, such as the Columbine High School massacre, the Virginia Tech shooting or Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in the United States.

However, in 1999 the Columbine High School massacre was widely labelled as a suicide attack: both attackers shot themselves, but they planned the attack as a bombing. It is also a common trope that Muslim attackers are defined as terrorists while others are defined as mentally ill.

Religious terminology for attackers and victims

All Abrahamic religions forbid suicide.

Suicide and suicide attempts have been decriminalised in most of the western world, but remain criminalised in some countries, such as Afghanistan, Nigeria, Palestine, and others.

Terminology relating to this sin or crime is used by Jews, Christians, and Muslims to condemn suicide attackers (see also above), different terminology is usually used to describe self sacrifice that they believe is justified, including actions their enemies label suicide attacks (see below).

Among Muslims, secular Arabs, and related cultures, the term martyr or shaheed has a broad meaning and can refer to leaders who have been assassinated or executed, civilian casualties of war, and combatants who did not intend to die.

Victims of suicide bombings and the bombers are both commonly referred to as martyrs, by opposing groups, or when referring to different attacks.

Some Arabic speaking militant groups and their supporters call suicide attacks "martyrdom operations" (Arabic: للعمليات الاستشهادية, romanized: aleamaliaat alistishhadia). The concept of martyrdom in Islam is broad including people who died in plagues and women who died in childbirth, as well as fallen combatants who did not intend to die. According to Israeli academic Assaf Moghadam, the term "martyrdom operation" has been used by Hamas, Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and other Palestinian factions.

The term "martyrdom operation" was also used in March 2003 by the Iraqi administration to refer to suicide attacks on invading troops during the 2003 Iraq war, and in particular their promise to retake the Baghdad airport.

Victims of suicide attacks are also referred to as martyrs by a wide variety of cultures.

Benazir Bhutto, the leader of the Pakistan People's Party, is the most famous example of a progressive Muslim who is regarded as a martyr after being murdered in a suicide attack. Bhutto was assassinated in 2007 by a teenage Islamic extremist.

Labelling attacks as terrorism

Suicide attacks include both "suicide terrorism" and attacks targeting combatants. "Terrorism" is often defined as any action "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants" for the purpose of intimidation. This definition is often not used consistently; even those claiming to define terrorism this way sometimes describe attacks on their own military as "terrorism", while attacks on civilians by allied state actors are almost never called terrorism.

An alternative definition provided by Jason Burke, a journalist who has lived among Islamic militants, suggests that most define terrorism as "the use or threat of serious violence" to advance some kind of "cause", stressing that terrorism is a tactic.

This definition is often referred to by the euphemism "political violence".

Academic Fred Halliday has written that assigning the descriptor of "terrorist" or "terrorism" to the actions of a group is a tactic used by states to deny "legitimacy" and "rights to protest and rebel".

Israeli diplomacy has been very influential in defining terrorism as a concept.

This was largely led by Menachem Begin, who himself has been labelled as a terrorist leader, as commander of the Irgun militant group before Israel was recognized as a nation state by Western powers.

Homicide bombing

Some efforts have been made to replace the term "suicide bombing" with "homicide bombing", based on the assertion that "homicide" is a more apt adjective than "suicide" since the primary purpose of such a bombing is to kill other people. The only major media outlets to use it were the Fox News Channel and the New York Post, both of which are owned by News Corporation and have since mostly abandoned the term. Robert Goldney, a professor emeritus at the University of Adelaide, has argued in favor of the term "homicide bomber". Goldney argued that studies show that there is little in common between people who blow themselves up intending to kill as many people as possible in the process and actual suicide victims. Fox News producer Dennis Murray argued that a suicidal act should be reserved for a person who does something to kill only themselves. CNN producer Christa Robinson argued that the term "homicide bomber" was not specific enough, stating that "A homicide bomber could refer to someone planting a bomb in a trash can".

Background

Initially, these attacks primarily targeted military, police, and public officials. This approach continued with groups like Al-Qaeda, which combined mass civilian targets with political leadership. While only a few suicide attacks occurred between 1945 and 1980, between 1981 and September 2015 a total of 4,814 suicide attacks were carried out in over 40 countries, resulting in over 45,000 deaths. The global frequency of these attacks increased from an average of three per year in the 1980s to roughly one per month in the 1990s, almost one per week from 2001 to 2003, and roughly one per day from 2003 to 2015. In 2019, there were 149 suicide bombings in 24 countries, carried out by 236 individuals. These attacks resulted in 1,850 deaths and 3,660 injuries.

Related actions

Suicide is sometimes used as an extreme act of protest, without intent to cause tangible damage to the opponent.

Romas Kalanta was a 19-year-old Lithuanian student who self-immolated in 1972 to protest against the Soviet regime in Lithuania, sparking the 1972 unrest in Lithuania; another 13 people self-immolated in that same year.

Hunger strikes are another use of self harm, and actual or potential suicide, that is used by some militant groups.

During the 2006 Lebanon War, IDF Major Roi Klein and his unit took part in the Battle of Bint Jbeil. During a Hezbollah ambush, a hand grenade was thrown over the wall that was between Hezbollah militants and Klein and his unit. Klein jumped on the live grenade and muffled the explosion with his body. The soldiers reported that Klein recited the Jewish prayer, Shema Yisrael, as he jumped on the grenade. He then handed over his encoded radio to another officer, who took command of the force, and died. According to The Telegraph he yelled "Long live Israel", although this was probably a misinterpretation of "Shema Yisrael" (שמע ישראל).

During the First Jewish–Roman War, the letter of the Sicarii determined that the people in the besieged city of Masada should commit mass suicide, and even murder family members, to avoid capture during the Siege of Masada.

The story of Masada is prominent in Israeli culture.

The Sicarii Jewish sect are also sometimes described as carrying out "suicidal" attacks against their enemies (see below).

Other than as a way to cause enemy casualties, another situation in which some militaries and related bodies (such as intelligence agencies) encourage their own members to commit suicide is to avoid being captured by the enemy. The concept also often includes the use of intentional friendly fire. Either to avoid disclose of military secrets, avoid the need for a prisoner exchange, or for more intangible ideological motives. Individuals are encouraged by a perception that capture is a fate worse than death, and the likelihood of torture is strongly emphasised in internal propaganda. Sometimes, to the point that even civilians embrace the concept of dying (or killing people on their own side) to avoid capture.

Attackers killed by their opponents

Some sources define "suicide terrorism" and "suicide attack" broadly to include attackers who are killed by other people.

At the opposite extreme, militant leaders of from Jewish or Islamic militant groups – both religions that forbid suicide – claim that directly causing one's own death sometimes is not suicide (see above: suicide and religious terminology).

However, followers of these religiously derived ideologies define their enemies as suicidal, even if their opponent uses the same technique, such as when an ISIS-linked suicide bomber killed al-Qassam border guard Nidal al-Jaafari at Rafah crossing (see above).

During the colonial era and up to World War II, Muslims in Aceh and Moro, now part of Indonesia and the Philippines, attacked much more powerful opponents – principally the Dutch, the Japanese, and the Americans – despite near certain death. Some authors have characterised these as predecessors of modern suicide bombings.

Other sources say that suicide bombings in places like the Philippines arrose only recently, due to foreign influence from international cultists such as ISIS.

The Sicarii Jewish sect are sometimes described as carrying out "suicidal" attacks against their enemies.

Riaz Hassan said that the first-century AD Jewish Sicarii sect carried out "suicidal missions to kill" Hellenized Jews they considered immoral collaborators.

An article in BBC Arabic originally called the Sicarii the first group to carry out suicide attacks.

In September 2023, over a year after initial publication, this attracted controversy in English language Israeli media, when a complaint led to a change in the article.

First suicide attacks (attackers who killed themselves)

Several different events have been described as the first suicide attack in different sources.

The oldest story that is widely described as a suicide attack in modern sources is the biblical story of Samson's destruction of the Philistine temple in Gaza in Judges 16:30.

A study by German scholar Arata Takeda analyzes analogous behavior represented in literary texts from the antiquity through the 20th century, these being Ajax, Samson Agonistes, The Robbers, and The Just Assassins. The study concluded "that suicide bombings are not the expressions of specific cultural peculiarities or exclusively religious fanaticisms. Instead, they represent a strategic option of the desperately weak who strategically disguise themselves under the mask of apparent strength, terror, and invincibility".

Other writers have also interpreted Samson's death as a suicide attack.

An article in BBC Arabic claimed the Sicarii were the first group to carry out suicide attacks. In September 2023 the BBC responded to a complaint, deleted the Sicarii and reworded the second example so that the revised article called the Order of Assassins (Ismaeli Shia) the first. However, both groups were killed by their opponents (see above).

Arnold von Winkelried (1386 in Switzerland)

Arnold von Winkelried was considered a hero in the Swiss struggle for independence for sacrificing himself at the Battle of Sempach in 1386.

Kuyili (1780 in India)

In 1780, an Indian woman named Kuyili applied ghee and oil onto her body and set herself ablaze. She then jumped into an armoury of the East India Company, causing it to explode. This suicide attack helped to secure victory for her queen, Velu Nachiyar, in the battle.

Historical evidence about her life is scarce, relying primarily on folk songs and oral histories due to her marginalized Arunthathiyar or Sambavar background.

17th- and 19th-century Dutch

In the late 17th century, Qing official Yu Yonghe recorded that injured Dutch soldiers fighting against Koxinga's forces for control of Taiwan in 1661 would use gunpowder to blow up both themselves and their opponents rather than be taken prisoner. However, Yu may have confused such suicidal tactics with the standard Dutch military practice of undermining and blowing up overrun positions, which almost cost Koxinga his life during the Siege of Fort Zeelandia.

On 5 February 1831, during the Belgian Revolution, a gale blew a Dutch gunboat under the command of Jan van Speyk into the quay of the port of Antwerp. As the ship was stormed by Belgians, van Speyk refused to surrender, instead igniting the ship's gunpowder with either his gun or cigar, blowing up the ship. The explosion killed 28 out of the 31 crewmen and an unknown number of Belgians.

Ignaty Grinevitsky (1881) and others in Russia

A Russian man named Ignaty Grinevitsky (also spelled: Ignacy Hryniewiecki) is sometimes described as the first known suicide bomber. The invention of dynamite in the 1860s presented revolutionary and terrorist groups in Europe with a weapon nearly 20 times more powerful than gunpowder. However, using dynamite required overcoming the technical challenges of detonating it at the right time. One solution was to use a human trigger, which was the technique used to assassinate Tsar Alexander II of Russia in 1881. A would-be suicide bomber killed Russian Minister of the Interior Vyacheslav von Plehve, in St Petersburg in 1904, but survived with major injuries.

Personal disputes before WWII

The earliest known non-military suicide attack occurred in Murchison, New Zealand, on 14 July 1905. When a long-standing dispute between two farmers resulted in a court case, defendant Joseph Sewell arrived with sticks of gelignite strapped to his body. During the court proceedings, Sewell shouted "I'll blow the devil to hell, and I have enough dynamite to do just that." He was then ushered out of the building and when a police officer tried to arrest him on the street, Sewell detonated the charge, killing himself. No one other than Sewell was killed by the attack.

The first reported car bombing was the Bath School bombings in Michigan, USA in 1927. Multiple separate explosions on the same day killed 45 people, including the bomber, and half of a school was destroyed.

The bombings were all carried out by Andrew Kehoe, motivated by a personal grievance.

His death was possibly an intentional suicide, but the cause of the explosion was a gun shot that might not have been intended to set off the load. The explosion itself did not seem to form part of a suicide attack on a specific planned target other than possibly himself and his truck.

The explosives in his truck detonated when he saw two men nearby had a gun, after he set off multiple other bombs.

The explosion may have been set off indirectly by him firing his own gun at the men.

Most of the deaths were caused by the earlier bombs.

Pahartali European Club attack (1932, in Bangladesh)

In 1932, Surya Sen planned an attack on the Pahartali European Club which had a signboard that read "Dogs and Indians not allowed". Sen decided to appoint a woman leader for the mission. As Kalpana Datta was arrested prior to the planned attack, Pritilata was assigned the leadership of the group. Pritilata went to Kotowali sea side for arms training and the plan of their attack was finalised there. It was decided to attack the club on 24 September 1932, and the members of the group were given potassium cyanide, to be swallowed to commit suicide if they were caught. Pritilata herself committed suicide on this attack after sustaining bullet injury. According to the police report, one woman was killed, and four men and seven women were injured in the attack.

Spanish civil war (1936–1939)

There are a few reports of suicide bombers during the civil war in the 1930s.

Chinese suicide squads

During the Xinhai Revolution and the Warlord Era of the Republic of China, "Dare to Die Corps" (traditional Chinese: 敢死隊; simplified Chinese: 敢死队; pinyin: gǎnsǐduì; Wade–Giles: Kan-ssu-tui) or "suicide squads". were frequently used by Chinese armies.

China deployed these suicide units against the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

In 1938 300 Chinese troops reportedly killed themselves with hand grenades to avoid being captured.

Hand grenade suicide to avoid capture has also been used by other militaries (see above), and allegedly was recommended by the leader of the Golani Brigade of the IDF.

In the Xinhai Revolution, many Chinese revolutionaries became martyrs in battle. "Dare to Die" student corps were founded for student revolutionaries wanting to fight against Qing dynasty rule. Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing promoted the corp, Huang saying, "We must die, so let us die bravely." Suicide squads were formed by Chinese students going into battle, knowing that they would be killed fighting against overwhelming odds.

The 72 Martyrs of Huanghuagang died in the uprising that began the Wuchang Uprising. They were recognized as heroes and martyrs by the Kuomintang party and the Republic of China. The martyrs in the "Dare to Die" corps wrote letters to family members before heading off to certain death. The Huanghuakang was built as a monument to the 72 dead. The deaths of the revolutionaries helped the establishment of the Republic of China, overthrowing the Qing dynasty. Other "Dare to Die" student corps in the Xinhai revolution were led by students who later became major military leaders in Republic of China, like Chiang Kai-shek and Huang Shaoxiong with the Muslim Bai Chongxi against Qing dynasty forces.

Dare to Die troops were used by warlords. The Kuomintang used one to put down an insurrection in Canton. Many women joined them in addition to men to achieve martyrdom against China's opponents. They were known as 烈士 (lit-she; martyrs) after accomplishing their mission.

During World War II

Germans during World War II

Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff intended to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a suicide bombing in 1943, but was unable to complete the attack.

According to the commander of the 12th SS Panzer Division Kurt Meyer, several of his men had tied explosives to themselves and jumped on Allied tanks during the Normandy Campaign.

During the Battle of Berlin the Luftwaffe flew "self-sacrifice missions" (German: selbstopfereinsätze) against Soviet bridges over the River Oder. These "total missions" were flown by pilots of the Leonidas Squadron. From 17 to 20 April 1945, using any available aircraft, the Luftwaffe claimed the squadron had destroyed 17 bridges. However, military historian Antony Beevor believes this claim was exaggerated and only the railway bridge at Küstrin was definitely destroyed. He comments that "thirty-five pilots and aircraft was a high price to pay for such a limited and temporary success". The missions were called off when the Soviet ground forces reached the vicinity of the squadron's airbase at Jüterbog.

The Luftwaffe also formed the Sonderkommando Elbe squadron late in the war, flying Bf 109 in ramming attacks on Allied bombers. In their lone mission on 7 April 1945, a force of 180 Bf 109s managed to ram 15 Allied bombers, downing 8 of them.Though widely described as suicide missions, the pilots were expected to parachute out just before or after the ramming attack.

Destruction of Auschwitz crematorium IV (1944)

The Sonderkommando revolt at Auschwitz on 7 October 1944 is widely described as a suicide mission.

Most (452) of the rebel prisoners were killed by the SS guards during or soon after the uprising. Rebels armed with work tools and shivs attacked SS guards who were armed with pistols and machine guns.

Some of the Sonderkommando prisoners took the already suicidal mission a step further. They set fire to Crematorium IV while they were inside the building, and stayed inside to prevent the guards putting out the fire until the building was destroyed. The fire possibly also ignited explosives they had placed in the walls.

The Polish resistance outside the camp tried to postpone the uprising until the Red Army were close enough to assist, originally it was planned to coordinate with Operation Bagration, but was delayed. Some worried that people who did not participate would face collective punishment for the revolt.

The Sonderkommando prisoners, who had been forced to work in the crematorium, were unwilling to wait; they worried they would be killed before the Red Army approached to liberate the concentration camp, which eventually happened in 1945.

Allied forces during WWII

In 1941, some newspapers reported that, "While two New Zealand officers stood on a bridge in Greece holding up advancing Germans with their revolvers, a New Zealand sergeant placed two bared wires together and blew the bridge, the officers, and himself to smithereens".

Attacks by the Empire of Japan

The most overt and prolific use of suicide attacks during World War II was by Empire of Japan. It remains the most intense and deadly, campaign of suicide attacks in history. Kamikaze pilots on suicide missions flew aircraft full of bombs and improvised missiles at enemy targets. The attacks used 2600 aircraft to kill 7000 allied naval personnel and 4000 Japanese suicide operatives.

Kamikaze was a ritual act of self-sacrifice carried out by Japanese pilots of explosive-laden aircraft against Allied warships which occurred on a large scale at the end of World War II.

About 3000 attacks were made and about 50 ships were sunk.

Later in the war, as Japan became more desperate, this act became formalised and ritualised. Planes were outfitted with explosives specific to the task of a suicide mission. Kamikaze strikes were a weapon of asymmetric war used by the Empire of Japan against United States Navy and Royal Navy aircraft carriers, although the armoured flight deck of the Royal Navy carriers diminished kamikaze effectiveness. Along with fitting existing aircraft with bombs, the Japanese also developed the Ohka, a purpose-built suicide aircraft that was air-launched from a carrying bomber and propelled to the target at high speed using rocket engines. The Japanese Navy also used piloted torpedoes called kaiten (heaven shaker) on suicide missions. Although sometimes called midget submarines, these were modified versions of the unmanned torpedoes of the time and are distinct from the torpedo-firing midget submarines used earlier in the war, which were designed to infiltrate shore defenses and return to a mother ship after firing their torpedoes. Although extremely hazardous, these midget submarine attacks were not technically suicide missions, as the earlier midget submarines had escape hatches. Kaitens, however, provided no means of escape.

Pilot suicides after WWII

Some passenger airline pilots appear to have committed mass murder-suicide, or attempted to, with no apparent political motives.

Examples of undisputed pilot suicides and attempted suicides

Japan Air Lines Flight 350 – 1982 deliberate crash in Tokyo, Japan.

Germanwings Flight 9525 – Suicidal co-pilot locked the captain out of the cockpit and deliberately crashed the aircraft into the French Alps, killing 150.

Examples of speculated and disputed pilot suicides

SilkAir Flight 185 – 1997 aircraft crash in Indonesia

EgyptAir Flight 990 – 1999 aircraft crash in the Atlantic Ocean

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (8 March 2014) – Pilot suicide is one of several competing explanations suggested for the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

During the Cold War

Reduced suicide attacks after WWII

After the Surrender of Japan, at the end of World War II in Asia, there was a massive reduction in the number of suicide attacks. The few that did occur were sometimes carried out by individuals for personal reasons such as pilot suicides in commercial aircraft (see above).

For most of the Cold War suicide attacks were only sporadic, but suicide attacks began to become more frequent towards the end of the Cold War (see below).

Insurgency in Palestine (1944–1948)

In the 1930s, Zionist insurgents in Palestine used proxy bombing and animal-borne bomb attacks in their attacks on civilian targets such as Haifa vegetable market.

By the 1940s they explored the possibility of using humans on their own side, resulting in at least two deaths.

The Lehi militant group used Judges 16:30 in discussions about potential suicide attacks. In a meeting about ways to assassinate General Evelyn Barker, the British Army commander in Mandatory Palestine, a young woman volunteered to do the assassination as a suicide bombing.

They referred to it as a "Let my soul die with the Philistines" proposal (Hebrew: תמות נפשי עם פלשתים), or a "Samson option".

On that occasion other members of the group allegedly rejected her offer.

However, the Lehi collaborated with the Irgun militant group on at least one joint suicide bombing carried out by one militant from each group during the insurgency against the British (before the 1948 Palestine war). The plan, named Operation Samson (Hebrew: מבצע שמשון, romanized: Mivtsa Shimshon), was intended to be a suicide attack, but the two militants were the only casualties.

A Lehi militant and an Irgun militant blew themselves up in Jerusalem Central Prison.

They used improvised grenades that had been constructed by another Lehi prisoner. The explosives were disguised as oranges to hide them from the guards, and smuggled in with the prisoners' food.

The plan was to use the grenades as they were taken to the gallows to kill themselves, the executioners, and British officials who attended hangings.

But the explosives detonated early, while the two of them were alone together in their cell.

Korean War (1950–1953)

North Korean tanks were attacked by South Koreans with suicide tactics during the Korean War.

American tanks in Seoul were attacked by North Korean suicide squads, who used satchel charges. North Korean soldier Li Su-Bok is considered a hero for destroying an American tank with a suicide bomb.

In 1952, three Chinese soldiers reportedly killed themselves with hand grenades to avoid capture.

1953 in West Virginia

In January 1953 at a magistrate's Court in West Virginia, 47-year-old Donzel McCray "turned himself into a human bomb" with sticks of dynamite strapped to his waist. He killed himself and injured his ex-wife and her lawyer. The couple had six children and had divorced the previous September.

Israeli and Egyptian wars (1956–1970)

Some Israelis romanticize acts of self sacrifice in battle by analogy to the Biblical hero Samson, particularly if they take place in Gaza, where Israelis believe he committed suicide and killed thousands of enemy Philistines in the process. In situations where death or severe injury is already difficult to avoid, it is seen as heroic to abandon efforts to save one's self and instead focus on causing as much harm as possible to the enemy, in the process of effectively committing suicide. This includes some anecdotes of events during their wars with Egypt.

According to Egyptian media, during the Suez Crisis in 1956, an Arab Christian military officer from Syria, Jules Jammal, sunk a French ship with a suicide attack.

However, none of the French ships named by the sources were harmed during the crisis. It is unclear which actual ship he is supposed to have sunk. One source calls the ship at issue the "liner Jean D'Arc" and another the "French warship, Jeanne D'Arc". There was a French cruiser Jeanne d'Arc in service at that time, but it was decommissioned in 1964 rather than sunk. Some sources name the battleship Jean Bart.

On 21 March 1968, in response to persistent Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) raids against Israelis, Israel attacked the town of Karameh, Jordan, the site of a major PLO camp. The goal of the invasion was to destroy the Karameh refugee camp and capture Yasser Arafat in reprisal for the attacks by the PLO against Israelis.

The PLO attacks had culminated in an Israeli school bus hitting a mine in the Negev.

According to a biography of an autobiography by Tass Saada – an alleged former PLO sniper who converted to Christianity in the United States – this battle marked the first known deployment of suicide bombers by Palestinian (Arab) forces.

Modern academics describe aspects of the way the Battle of Karameh is remembered as a "myth" or "distortion".

Lod airport massacre (1972)

One of the first incidents to be labelled "suicide terrorism" was the mass shooting at the airport in Lod, Israel's international airport. Two of the attackers died during the attack, one of whom deliberately committed suicide using a hand grenade.

According to France 24 and AFP, "The massacre was planned as a suicide attack and all three Japanese militants had intended to mutilate their faces with their grenades to make identification more difficult".

It was carried out by three foreign fighters from the Japanese Red Army (a communist militant group from Japan) in corroboration with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations (PFLP-EO) division, led by Wadie Haddad, a rebellious offshoot of the PFLP.

Some reports at the time labelled the incident a "Kamikaze" attack, but others have criticized the label, including the surviving attacker's interpreter. The Kamikaze were a unit of suicide bombers in the airforce of imperial Japan in WWII, the Empire of Japan had a very different ideology to the JRA. Researchers from Duke University described the JRA's motives as "rooted in anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and anti-capitalism".

In 2010, Ze'ev Sarig, the former manager of Lod Airport, compared the attack to the September 11 attacks in New York, "This attack was for Israelis what the September 11th attacks were for Americans", when trying to sue North Korea for the attack in a United States court in Puerto Rico in 2010.

Cold War era literature and mythology

The Revolt, written by Menachem Begin before he became Prime Minister, tells the story of the Lehi (referred to by their translated name's acronym, F.F.I. "Freedom Fighters of Israel" in early English editions) and Begin's own Irgun fighters during the Jewish insurgency in Palestine.

The Revolt influenced groups from a wide variety of ideologies.

Some of these groups were the groups began using suicide attacks in the 1990s.

The book was allegedly found in Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.

Begin praised his militants' willingness to die, "These two wonderful young men greeted the sentence with the singing of Hatikvah".

The "two wonderful young men" we're the two who blew themselves up in 1947, he described their deaths, "even before they put on their red uniforms. They too held their heads high when they faced their judges… But they did not reach the gallows. They too sang on the threshold of death — a song of faith in God: 'Lord of the world who reigned before creation'. But their song ended with a great explosion which shattered the silence of the prison in occupied Jerusalem".

In 1977 the author became prime minister, after previously being in opposition. Historical militants featured prominently in his political speeches. He praised the actions of his militants during the insurgency in Palestine in the 1940s, including the leader of the cell who bombed the King David Hotel (killing 91 people and 1 terrorist). His favourites were, again, the two young militants who blew themselves up in Jerusalem prison in 1947.

The Turner Diaries is a work of fiction, but is confirmed to have inspired terrorist attacks and far right extremist movements.

In the final scene before the epilogue, the main character carries out a suicide attack on The Pentagon, in an aircraft carrying a nuclear bomb.

Increased suicide attacks in the 1980s

The 1980s saw the first suicide attacks by Arabs, and by stricter definitions of suicide attack, the first suicide attacks in the Middle East. Earlier examples were the three Japanese foreign fighters in 1972, only one of whom killed himself as planned, the Ashkenazi and Kurdish-Iraqui duo who blew themselves up before reaching their target in 1947 (see above).

As well as stories such as Jules Jammal whose suicide attacks probably happened only in myth.

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 Marines and French barracks in October 1983 brought suicide bombings international attention and began the modern suicide bombing era.

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 a total of roughly 50 suicide bombings. The Syrian Social Nationalist Party sent the first recorded female suicide bomber in 1985.

One of the first bombing campaigns utilizing primarily suicide attacks had considerable political success. In the early 1980s, Hezbollah used these bombing attacks, targeting first foreign peacekeepers and then Israel. The result in both cases was the targets withdrawing from Lebanon.

Suicide bombings by individuals

Some of the first 1980s suicide bombings were by individuals, for both political and personal motives, for example:

The Yangquan theatre bombing was a suicide bombing that killed 32 people, in a cinema in Yangquan, Shanxi, China, on 22 July 1981.

On 22 July 1981, 24-year-old Gao Haiping invited a girl, who had dumped him previously, to a film screening in Yangquan.

He intended to kill them both with a bomb made of about 3 kg of ammonium nitrate and an electric detonator in a metal box.

When the woman did not show up, Gao entered the theatre alone and took his place in seat 25 in the second row. At about 8 p.m., he put the bomb on his lap and detonated it, killing himself and 31 other people, wounding another 127, and severely damaging the theatre.

Gao Haiping was an only child. He worked as a miner and was described as a loner who was pessimistic and dissatisfied with his life.

A suicide note and letters to his parents were found in a drawer in his home, as well as explosives wrapped in paper.

Not all politically motivated suicide attacks targeted other people.

On 18 November 1982, Neil Roberts carried out a suicide bombing in Whanganui, New Zealand.

His target was a facility housing the main computer centre of the National Law Enforcement Database belonging to New Zealand Police, Courts, Ministry of Transport, and other law enforcement agencies, in Whanganui. The power of the explosion made it so that police were initially unable to determine the gender of the perpetrator.

Sri Lankan civil war

During the Sri Lankan civil war, the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) adopted suicide bombing as a tactic, using bomb belts and female bombers. The LTTE carried out their first suicide attack in July 1987. Their Black Tiger unit committed 83 suicide attacks from 1987 to 2009, killing 981 people. Those killed included former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the president of Sri Lanka, Ranasinghe Premadasa.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were thought to have mastered the use of suicide attacks and had a separate unit, "The Black Tigers", consisting "exclusively of cadres who have volunteered to conduct suicide operations".

The first prominent suicide bombing by the LTTE occurred in 1987 when Captain Miller drove a truck laden with explosives into a Sri Lankan army camp killing 40 soldiers.

Use of suicide by the LTTE had mixed results. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) pioneered the use of suicide bombings against civilian and political targets. In 2000, Yoram Schweitzer called the LTTE "unequivocally the most effective and brutal terrorist organization ever to utilize suicide terrorism". Their struggle for an independent state in the North and East of the island lasted for 26 years and led to the deaths of two heads of state or government, several ministers, and up to 100,000 combatants and civilians, from by a UN estimate. Politically, its attacks succeeded in halting the deployment of the Indian peace keeping troops to Sri Lanka and the subsequent postponement of the peace-talks in Sri Lanka. Nonetheless, the conflict ended in May 2009 not with an independent Eelam, but with the overrunning of LTTE strongholds and the killing of its leadership by the Sri Lankan military and security forces.

List of suicide attacks during the Cold War (1947–1991)

Table footnotes

Post-Cold War and war on terror

Post-Cold War Palestine

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 post-independence Israel was done by "Hamas" in 1994. Attacks peaked from 2001 to 2003 with over 40 bombings and over 200 killed in 2002. Bombers affiliated with these groups often use so-called "suicide belts", explosive devices which often included shrapnel designed to be strapped to the body under clothing. 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 such as soldiers waiting for transport at the roadside. These bombings have had more popular support than in other Muslim countries. 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. In 2004, due to increased effectiveness in Israel's security measures and stricter checkpoint protocols, terrorist organizations began employing women and children more frequently as operatives, assuming that they would raise fewer suspicions and undergo less rigorous inspections.

Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and their militant wing al-Qassam, were formed in the 1980s but avoided using suicide in their political violence until the following decade.

The group have utilized suicide intermittently in specific situations.

Suicide attempts are a criminal offense in Palestine and many other majority Muslim countries.

Hamas's most sustained suicide bombing campaign from 2003 to 2004 involved several members of Hebron's Masjad (mosque) al-Jihad soccer team. Most lived in the Wad Abu Katila neighborhood and belonged to the al-Qawasmeh hamula (clan). Several were classmates in the neighborhood's local branch of the Palestinian Polytechnic College. Their ages ranged from 18 to 22. At least eight team members were dispatched to suicide shooting and bombing operations by the Hamas military leader in Hebron, Abdullah al-Qawasmeh. Al-Qawasmeh was killed by Israeli forces in June 2003 and succeeded by his relatives Basel al-Qawasmeh, killed in September 2003, and Imad al-Qawasmeh, captured on 133 October 2004. In retaliation for the assassinations of Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on 22 March 2004 and Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi on 17 April 2004, Imad al-Qawasmeh dispatched Ahmed al-Qawasmeh and Nasim al-Ja'abri for a suicide attack on two buses in Beer Sheva. The attack took place on 31 August 2004. In December 2004, Hamas declared a halt to suicide attacks.

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a secular group, have also been involved in suicide attacks.

Their first militant action was an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Mehmet Celal Bucak.

The PKK began their insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984. However, they did not carry out their first suicide attack until the 1990s.

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.

On 12 May 2025, the Kurdistan Workers' Party announced it would disband as part of a peace initiative with Turkey.

Al-Qaeda begin using suicide in the 1990s

Al-Qaeda carried out its first suicide attack in the mid-1990s.

Start of the 21st Century

In early 2000, analyst Yoram Schweitzer saw a pause in bombing campaigns and argued that "most of the groups that were involved in suicide terrorism either stopped using it or eventually reduced it significantly".

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 and 460 in 2005. By 2005, the tactic had spread to dozens of countries.

The absolute number increased despite a narrowing of the definition of suicide attacks.

The United States government defined "modern" suicide bombing has been defined as "involving explosives deliberately carried to the target either on the person or in a civilian vehicle and delivered by surprise".

Noah Feldman's definition excludes attacks, such as the Lod Airport massacre (see above), where "the perpetrator's ensured death" was not "a precondition for the success of his mission" (despite the Lod Airport attack being overtly planned as a suicide attack, and often referred to as such, as well as the surviving attacker wanting the death penalty for himself).

Russia and Chechnya

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 and the Beslan school hostage crisis in 2004.

2001 September 11 attacks and after

The September 11 attacks in 2001, orchestrated by al-Qaeda, were the deadliest attacks 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. Unlike earlier airline hijackings, the primary focus was the planes instead of the passengers because their long transcontinental flight plans meant they carried more fuel, allowing a bigger explosion on impact. American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were deliberately flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, destroying both 110-story skyscrapers in less than two hours. American Airlines Flight 77 was flown into the Pentagon (U.S. Department Of Defense Headquarters) 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. United Airlines Flight 93 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 in the first unscheduled close since the Great Depression. Nine days after the attack, U.S. President George W. Bush called for a "war on terror". Shortly thereafter he launched the War in Afghanistan to find and capture Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda. A copy of The Revolt, memoir of the Irgun commander, was found in one of al-Qaeda's training bases.

After the attacks on 11 September 2001, at least in the short term, the results were negative for Al-Qaeda, as well as the Taliban. Since the attacks, Western nations have diverted massive resources towards stopping similar actions, as well as increasing border security, and military actions against various countries believed to have been involved with terrorism.

Critics of the war on terrorism suggest the results were negative, as the subsequent actions of the United States and other countries has increased the number of recruits and their willingness to carry out suicide bombings.

In the U.S., the post-9/11 era meant "previously inconceivable security measures—in airports and other transportation hubs, hotels and office buildings, sports stadiums and concert halls".

United States invasion of Iraq

After the invasion of Iraq in 2003 led by the U.S., Iraqi and foreign insurgents carried out waves of suicide bombings. More attacks have been carried out in Iraq than in any other country, with 1,938 as of mid-2015.

In addition to United States military targets, they attacked many civilian targets such as Shiite mosques as well as 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 30 January 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.

The self-declared "Islamic State" (ISIS) use suicide attacks against government targets before they attack. The attackers use a wide range of methods, from suicide vests and belts to bomb trucks and cars and APCs filled with explosives. Usually, the suicide bomber involved in a "martyrdom operation" will record his last words in a martyrdom video before they start their attack, which will be released after the suicide attack is done.

A study published by The Guardian in 2017 analyzed 923 attacks done between December 2015 and November 2016 and compared the military tactic to those used by kamikaze operations. Charlie Winter, the author of the study, said that ISIS had "industrialized the concept of martyrdom". 84% of suicide attacks were directed towards military targets, usually with armed vehicles. About 80% of the attackers were of Iraqi or Syrian origin. According to the Institute for National Security Studies, there were fewer suicide attacks worldwide in 2017, but more female suicide bombers participated in them. According to the institute, ISIS and al-Qaeda led the suicide terrorism.

In 2017 and 2019, during the Sinai insurgency, there were suicide bombings in the Gaza Strip by local ISIS sympathizers. ISIS are a global extremist group, with an ideology that fundamentally opposes the Palestinian nationalism of Hamas and the other groups above. In 2017 two Hamas government border guards were killed while attempting to intercept an ISIS suicide bomber at Rafah Crossing. The Hamas government responded to that bombing with a crackdown on followers of "deviant ideologies" (meaning ISIS and similar groups).

South and Central Asia

Other major locations of suicide attack are Afghanistan, with 1,059 attacks as of mid-2015, and Pakistan, with 490 attacks.

In the first eight months of 2008, Pakistan overtook Iraq and Afghanistan in suicide bombings, with 28 bombings killing 471 people.

Shaheed (martyr) Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan and leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), was assassinated in a terrorist attack on 27 December 2007. Benazir and 23 other people were killed by a 16-year-old suicide bomber using an explosive belt and used a gun.

Bhutto had already survived a previous assassination attempt in Karachi.

Following this, many schools and universities were named in honour of her martyrdom.

Africa

Since 2006, al-Shabaab has carried out major suicide attacks in Somalia, the worst year so far being 2016 with 28 attacks.

Western Europe

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.

On 22 May 2017, the Manchester Arena bombing occurred which resulted in 23 deaths and 1,017 injuries. The attack was carried out as people were leaving an Ariana Grande concert.

Car bomb suicides in the 2020s

On 25 December 2020, a suicide bombing occurred in Nashville, Tennessee.

On 17 May 2025, a 2010 silver Ford Fusion sedan loaded with explosives detonated outside the American Reproductive Centers fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California, resulting in the death of the perpetrator, 25-year-old Guy Edward Bartkus, and injuries to four others. Nearby buildings were damaged and windows were shattered. A tripod and camera were found at the scene. The FBI called it an "intentional act of terrorism". Bartkus reportedly identified himself as the perpetrator of the bombing in a video posted online, an audio recording, and manifesto in which he described himself as a "pro-mortalist" and said people did not give consent to exist. A 32-year-old man named Daniel Jongyon Park was arrested for possible involvement. Park was expelled from Poland to face prosecution on the United States.

Attacker demographics

Children and teenagers

Araki Yukio was born on 10 March 1928, at the age of fifteen he joined the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service's Youth Pilot Training Program. On 27 May 1945, Araki took off from Bansei Airfield, in Kagoshima Prefecture, on a kamikaze mission, flying a Mitsubishi Ki-51. At the age of seventeen, Araki was one of the youngest known kamikaze pilots. It has been speculated that his plane was one of two that struck the USS Braine, killing 66 of her crew; however, the ship did not sink.

There was a heated dispute surrounding the death penalty trial of the Irgun militant who blew himself up in 1947 (see above).

He was sentenced to death alongside another militant for their role in the bombing of Jerusalem Train Station, but the other militant later had his sentence commuted to life in prison.

There was heated debate about the age of the Irgun suicide militant when he was sentenced. His mother and brother claimed he was 17, too young to be executed according to the law of the British authorities.

The court claimed he was 23, because he had served in the British military during World War II, and the British refused to believe they had recruited a minor who was lying about his age.

Yehuda Lapidot and the IDF say he was born on 5 October 1927.

Surviving relatives disagree, maintaining that he was born in July 1929.

Mohammed Hossein Fahmideh, a 13-year-old Iranian boy who fought in the Iran–Iraq War, is said – by former CIA operative Robert Baer – to be the first Muslim to have participated in such an attack in contemporary history.

The boy strapped rocket-propelled grenades to his chest and blew himself up under an Iraqi tank in November 1980.

Women

In some traditions, women are customarily seen as peace-makers rather than as front-line actors in conflicts. This stereotype has made them useful as suicide bombers, because they might be underestimated and thus be able to enter target areas inconspicuously, leading to more lethal suicide attacks. Whether women's motivations for becoming suicide bombers generally differ from men's remains a pertinent question. Bloom has suggested some salient reasons for women to turn to suicide bombings, such as "to avenge a personal loss, to redeem the family name, to escape a life of sheltered monotony and achieve fame, or to equalize the patriarchal societies in which they live". Some earlier literature suggested that women tend to be motivated by personal trauma rather than by ideological reasons. Other researchers disagree with this assessment and state that it reduces women's political agency, seeing as they are just as capable of making a choice based on ideology. Women's as well as men's usual motivations for becoming suicide bombers should be assumed to be nuanced and complex.

Tactics and strategies

Devices

Various groups adapt their strategies to suit specific targets. For example, in the 1980s, Hezbollah favored the use of explosive-laden cars, while the LTTE in Sri Lanka employed tactics involving explosive-laden boats. Palestinian organizations in the 1990s refined an approach involving suicide bombers with explosive belts, influencing groups like the Chechens and the PKK. In contemporary Iraq, local factions have utilized explosive-laden vehicles to target heavily guarded military facilities.

Decades earlier, the Lehi militant group were discovered to have constructed a "coat bomb", with explosives concealed by being stitched inside the coat. They appear to have attempted to use it in a non-suicide bombing, taking it off and leaving it behind in the targeted building, but it failed to detonate for unclear reasons. They also used it for smuggling explosives into England.

Strategic advantages

According to author Jeffrey William Lewis, success campaigns of suicide bombing require: willing individuals, organisations to train and use them, and a society willing to accept such acts in the name of a greater good. The organisations work to guarantee individual suicide bombers that they "will be remembered as martyrs dying for their communities". By imbuing suicide attacks with "reverence and heroism", it becomes more attractive to recruits. According to Yoram Schweitzer, modern suicide terrorism is "aimed at causing devastating physical damage, through which it inflicts profound fear and anxiety". Its goal is not to produce a negative psychological effect only on the victims of the actual attack, but on the entire target population. Attackers themselves have often framed suicide attacks as acts of courageous self-sacrifice made necessary by the superior military or security strength of the enemy. The technique has also been called "the atomic weapon of the weak". According to Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, "Once we have warplanes and missiles, then we can think of changing our means of legitimate self-defense. But right now, we can only tackle the fire with our bare hands and sacrifice ourselves".

A major reason for the popularity of suicide attacks, despite the sacrifice involved for its perpetrators, is its tactical advantages over other types of terrorism such as the ability to conceal weapons, make last-minute adjustments, an increased ability to infiltrate heavily guarded targets, and the lack of need for remote or delayed detonation, escape plans or rescue teams. Robert Pape observed that "Suicide attacks are an especially convincing way to signal the likelihood of more pain to come, because if you are willing to kill yourself you are also willing to endure brutal retaliation. [...] The element of suicide itself helps increase the credibility of future attacks because it suggests that attackers cannot be deterred".

Other scholars have criticized Pape's research design, arguing that it cannot draw any conclusions on the efficacy of suicide terrorism.

Bruce Hoffman described the characteristics of suicide bombing as "universal" —

"Suicide bombings are inexpensive and effective. They are less complicated and compromising than other kinds of terrorist operations. They guarantee media coverage. The suicide terrorist is the ultimate smart bomb. Perhaps most important, coldly efficient bombings tear at the fabric of trust that holds societies together".

Motivation for attacks

According to Bruce Hoffman (quoting the RAND Corporation) and Assaf Moghadam, suicide attacks distinguish themselves from other terror attacks due to their heightened lethality and destructiveness. Perpetrators benefit from the ability to conceal weapons and make last-minute adjustments, and there is no need for escape plans or rescue teams. There is also no need to conceal their identities. In the case of suicide bombings, they do not require remote or delayed detonation. Although they accounted for only 4% of all "terrorist attacks" between 1981 and 2006, they resulted in 32% of terrorism-related deaths at 14,599 deaths. 90% of these attacks occurred in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. By mid-2015, approximately three-quarters of all suicide attacks occurred in just three countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.

William Hutchinson describes suicide attacks as a weapon of psychological warfare aimed at instilling fear in the target population, undermining areas where the public feels secure, and eroding the "fabric of trust that holds societies together." This weapon is further used to demonstrate the lengths perpetrators will go to achieve their goals. Motivations for suicide attackers vary. Kamikaze pilots acted under military orders, while other attacks have been driven by religious or nationalist purposes. According to analyst Robert Pape, prior to 2003, most attacks targeted occupying forces. For example, 90% of attacks in Iraq before the civil war started in 2003 aimed at forcing out occupying forces. Pape's tabulation of suicide attacks runs from 1980 to early 2004 in Dying to Win, and to 2009 in Cutting the Fuse. According to American-French anthropologist Scott Atran, from 2000 to 2004, the ideology of Islamist martyrdom played a predominant role in motivating the majority of bombers.

Recent attacker profiles and motivations

Studies of who becomes a suicide attacker and what motivates them have often come to different conclusions. According to Riaz Hassan,

apart from one demographic attribute—that the majority of suicide bombers tend to be young males—the evidence has failed to find a stable set of demographic, psychological, socioeconomic and religious variables that can be causally linked to suicide bombers' personality or socioeconomic origins.

Anthropologist Scott Atran wrote,

"[Terrorists] are not sufficiently different from everyone else. Insights into homegrown jihadi attacks will have to come from understanding group dynamics, not individual psychology. Small-group dynamics can trump individual personality to produce horrific behavior in otherwise ordinary people.

Atran's research has found that the attacks are not organized from the top down, but occur from the bottom up. It is usually a matter of following one's friends and ending up in environments that foster groupthink. Atran is also critical of the claim that terrorists simply crave destruction; rather, they are often motivated by beliefs they hold sacred, as well as their moral reasoning.

A study of the remains of 110 suicide bombers in Afghanistan for the first part of 2007 by Afghan pathologist Yusef Yadgari found 80% were suffering from physical ailments such as missing limbs (before the blasts), cancer, or leprosy. Also, in contrast to earlier findings of suicide bombers, the Afghan bombers were "not celebrated like their counterparts in other Arab nations. Afghan bombers are not featured on posters or in videos as martyrs".

Menachem Begin called his only known suicide militant as "Meir the Stump", a reference to his amputated left arm.

Robert Pape, director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism, found the majority of suicide bombers came from the educated middle classes. For example, Humam Balawi, who perpetrated the Camp Chapman attack in Afghanistan in 2010, was a medical doctor.