Suicide Missions Research Articles

Nordic War Stories: World War II as History, Fiction, Media, and Memory

Nordic War Stories: World War II as History, Fiction, Media, and Memory

Last Girls by Demetra Brodsky

Reviewed by: Last Girls by Demetra Brodsky Natalie Berglind Brodsky, Demetra Last Girls. Tor Teen, 2020 [368p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-250-25652-2 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-250-76066-1 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 8-10 The teenage Juniper sisters are part of a cult-like coalition in Elkwood, Washington, with a penchant for acronyms and preparing for the apocalypse (or, TEOTWAWKI, The End Of The World As We Know It). Honey, seventeen, is protective of her younger sisters and indulgent in her art, a taboo hobby; Birdie, the middle child, is stubborn and boy-crazy; Blue is the weird one with a knack for predicting future events. When a disastrous prank at their public school is revealed to be an undercover “operation” by fellow preppers of the coalition gone awry, the sisters start to suspect that all is not well on the home front—especially as members are sent out by the [End Page 389] leader on suicide missions and a drug is used to wipe out some preppers’ memories. The acronyms, based in real prepper lingo, are easy to pick up, and inner-group corruption is a classic trope for a cult story. Though the apocalypse never happens, magic memory drugs and some light ESP lend this book a slight sci-fi twist, and there’s interest in the survival story details as the coalition raises its own produce and livestock, concocts medicines from herbs, and stocks up on essentials in case the worst happens. However, the mysteries of corruption are withheld too long with too obvious foreshadowing, and criticisms of the unnamed president never delve beneath the surface for real analysis. The rushed ending attempts to resolve everything without dealing with consequences: the girls were kidnapped from their real mother and brother during a power outage, are reunited with said family at the end with no weirdness, and continue to practice the prepper lifestyle learned from their abductor. Despite the book’s weaknesses, it could appeal to youngsters who enjoyed McAnulty’s The World Ends in April (BCCB 10/19). Copyright © 2020 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The suicide bomber as a medium of terrorist communication: a contribution from social systems theory

ABSTRACT This paper examines how suicide bombers are framed in terrorist communication, focusing on the empirical case of al-Qaeda’s suicide campaigns. Relying on the concept of media of communication in social systems theory, three main communicative levels of terrorist propaganda underlying the representation of suicide bombers are identified. First, on the level of power, armed organizations aim to coerce and deter their enemy by staging a complex set of communicative forms that signal their militants’ determination and resolve. Second, on the level of influence, armed groups exploit the symbolic qualities of suicide missions to gain support from a presumed constituency by referring to suicide attackers’ reputation and their ultimate sacrifice. Finally, by combining references to values and influence, bombers’ behavior and last wills are used as recruitment tools to attract new fighters by appealing to principles rooted in the prestige of martyrs. All of these communicative forms support the hypothesis that the representation of heroism and martyrdom is a crucial component of suicide terrorism. The synergy between the psychological impact of costly actions like suicide missions and framing processes exalting the military, moral and religious qualities of attackers constitutes a sophisticated weapon of a more recent asymmetric warfare involving radical Islamist organizations.

The use of women and children in suicide bombing by the Boko Haram terrorist Group in Nigeria

Terrorism has taken a new and frightening dimension in Nigeria. The manifestation is the incessant use of women and children in suicide bombing by the Boko Haram terrorist group. Examining this operational shift provided further impetus and insights into understanding the core of the problem. It brought to light the fact that Nigeria is a society where patriarchy holds sway and certain salient socio-political structures (culture, religion, economy and polity) of the society are unjust and unbalanced, thus placing women and children on the receiving end, while men are at advantage. This was elucidated in the predictions of radical feminist and political economy theories, which we combined to explain why and how this particular group is now widely exploited in suicide missions. The rationale behind their used is to beat security networks and carry out their operations with ease and huge success. Because women and children possess and demonstrate less suspicious behaviour and covert criminogenic tendencies, they stand to escape the scrutiny of security personnel. These natural characteristics confound security operatives and thereby prolonging the war on terrorism. However, many women and children who indulge in terror campaigns do that out of ignorance and usually under extreme indoctrination, brainwashing and manipulations. To remedy the situation, effective and trusted intra and inter-border surveillance/patrol and intergovernmental security partnership using state-of-the-art crime combating appurtenances, and acquisition of analytical skills in counterintelligence and counterterrorism, are highly recommended. Co-ordinated efforts are needed in the area of psychosocial rehabilitation and consequent reintegration, aftercare and follow-up of released or escaped abducted victims who were once forcefully used by this group in attacking their family and community for their reacceptance and to guard against stigmatisation and rejection. Our cultural and national values should be revisited and overhauled by the government and significant others in society for enduring public safety.

More Bang for the Buck: Media Coverage of Suicide Attacks

ABSTRACTThis paper provides empirical evidence that suicide attacks systematically draw more media attention than non-suicide terrorist attacks. Analyzing 60,341 terrorist attack days in 189 countries from 1970 to 2012, I introduce a methodology to proxy for the media coverage each one of these attack days receives in the New York Times. Suicide attacks are associated with significantly more coverage. In the most complete regression, one suicide attack produces an additional 0.6 articles—a magnitude equivalent to the effect of 95 terrorism casualties. This link remains robust to including a comprehensive list of potentially confounding factors, fixed effects, and country-specific time trends. The effect is reproduced for alternative print and television outlets (BBC, Reuters, CNN, NBC, CBS), but remains weak for Google Trends (worldwide and in the U.S.), a more direct proxy for people’s interests, and is non-existent for C-SPAN, a television station dedicated to broadcasting political discussions directly. Thus, the media appears to cover suicide missions in an extraordinary fashion, which may in turn explain their prominence among terrorist organizations.

Human Rights Protection: A Panacea for the Use and Involvement of Women in Terrorism

A large number of people tend to distinguish terrorism from other violent crimes; as some form of holy war or Jihad, however, it is strongly opined that this sheer wicked and brutal crime against humanity can only be categorised as murder – cold blooded, unjustifiable murder. One inherent attribute about humans is that people seek to justify their actions and inactions by backing it with some sort of rationale; those who go to the extreme hide under divine deities to perpetrate things concocted in their twisted minds to suit their own selfish interests and aspirations. It is only most unfortunate that these heartless criminals have successfully over the years hidden behind religion to perpetrate unholy and inhuman deprivation of life which has now come to be referred to as terrorism. The history of terrorism is as old as humans’ willingness to use violence to affect politics. This dates as far back as the 11th to 13th century. The Sicarii were a first century Jewish group who murdered enemies and collaborators in their campaign to oust their Roman rulers from Judea. The Hashhashin whose name gave us the English word ‘assassins’ were a secretive Islamic sect active in Iran and Syria at about that time. Zealots and Assassins were not, however, really terrorists in the modern sense. Terrorism is best thought of as a modern phenomenon. Its characteristics flow from the International system of nation-states, and its success depends on the existence of a mass media to create an aura of terror among many people. The attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 caused a resurgence of interest in terrorism studies in the United States and throughout the world. Although scholars have examined many factors related to terrorism, including nationalism and globalisation, the influence of gender on terrorism has received comparatively less attention. Alan Bairner (2001:21, 26) argues that such studies have endeavoured relatively successfully to neglect the issue of gender, but adds that they cannot be fully understood without reference to gender. In discussing gender and terrorism in recent times, Nigeria has experienced a high number of female suicide bombings in the past couple of months. Female suicide bombing have developed into a worrying trend and a destabilising factor in north-eastern Nigeria. This is an anomaly that cannot be ignored. Jama’at Ahl Sunnahlid – dawa wal-Jihad (JAS) known widely as Boko Haram has employed suicide bombers as a terrorist tactic in the insurgency against the Nigerian government since 2011. By the middle of 2014 however, reports began to emerge of an alarming new dimension; the use of women and girls in suicide missions. The first reported case of a female suicide bomber occurred on June 8, 2014 when a woman detonated a bomb near an army barracks in Gombe State of Nigeria. Despite the fact that this aspect of Women’s rights where women and young girls are being wired up as suicide bombers is quite novel and has inadequate literature, this paper does intend to lend a voice to this cause by considering the use and involvement of women and girls in violent crimes; using terrorism as a case study. Factors contributing to the involvement of women in violent crimes will be also be looked into. Another point which will arise for discussion is the rationale for the protection of the rights of women as a group. Since the women involved are predominantly from the north, the rights of women as guaranteed under the Islamic and Sharia law will also be looked at. Finally, the paper concludes and makes recommendations on how this scourge can be controlled and curbed. This paper is not just another feminist ranting; it is rather a call to action and further research into this evil that has suddenly become prevalent in our immediate environment.

Farewell to the world: a history of suicide

Introduction Part One: In the West I. The Worst Sin and the Gravest Crime II. The Key to Our Prison III. Killing God, Oneself and Others IV. If Poverty Does Not Protect Part Two: In the East V. Before Becoming a Widow VI. Making the Strong and Powerful Tremble. VII. The Body as a Bomb Conclusions Introduction Part One: In the West I. The worst sin and the gravest crime 1. The rise in suicide: a most tragic fact . 2. When did the figure start to rise? 3. The reasons for this growth. 4. Past reactions. 5. Punishments for those who killed themselves or attempted to do so. 6. Dishonourable burial. 7. On the formation of Christian ethics regarding voluntary death. 8. Chastity, rape and adultery. 9. Arabs, Christians and martyrs. 10. Christian beliefs regarding the causes of suicide. 11. Despair and the Redcrosse Knight. 12. Pre-Christian beliefs on the consequences of suicide. 13. Suicide as theft and desertion. 14. A new crime, that would hardly be believable . 15. Internal and external controls. II. The key to our prison 1. The lawfulness of suicide. 2. A changed sensitivity in the literature. 3. A new name for an old deed. 4. Natural and supernatural causes. 5. Melancholy, hypochondria and hysteria. 6. Depenalisation de facto. 7. Depenalisation de iure. 8. Saving endangered lives. 9. The freedom to take one s own life. III. Killing God, oneself and others 1. Two opposite trends. 2. Two channels of a single stream. 3. Public and private crimes. 4. What brought about these changes. 5. At the forefront of change. 6. Despair, anger, hatred. IV. If poverty does not protect 1. Sociology s one law and what remains. 2. When the Jews lost their ancient immunity . 3. The effects of Nazism and Fascism. 4. Concentration camps and prisons. 5. The Great Wars. 6. Emigrations. 7. Suicide is a White thing . 8. A question of some delicacy. 9. Sexual orientation. 10. Economic depressions [Recessions?] and crises of prosperity. 11. The unforeseen consequences of the shift to methane. 12. The trend inversion in central and northern Europe. 13. The medicalization of suicide and its effects. 14. The treatment of pain and other illnesses. 15. The steep rise in Eastern Europe. Part Two: In the East V. Before becoming a widow 1. Sati. 2. The Rite. 3. The effects of polygamy. 4. Funeral and wedding ceremonies. 5. Through love or coercion. 6. Suicides: condemned and admired. 7. The origin and spread of sati as a custom. 8. Sati or widow. 9. A clash of cultures. VI. Making the strong and powerful tremble. 1. The past. 2. Chinese peculiarities. 3. Continuity and change. 4. Old people and filial devotion. 5. Suicide among Chinese women. 6. Mao Zedong and the May Fourth paradigm. 7. The cultural repertoire of suicides. 8. The State and honouring the virtuous. 9. After a husband s death. 10. Differences compared to sati. 11. Following the death of a fiance . 12. A way of not submitting to enemies. 13. After assault and sexual violence. 14. Against arranged marriages. 15. The origin of the changes. 16. Against oneself and others. 17. Female suicide in the last two decades. VII. The Body as a Bomb 1. Suicide attacks and terrorism. 2. The modern phenomenon of suicide missions. 3. The rationality of weak players. 4. Nationalism and religious differences. 5. The globalisation of suicide missions. 6. Cyberspace. 7. Becoming a suicide bomber. 8. For a noble cause. 9. An army of roses. Conclusions

À la recherche d’une âme : psychopathologie de la radicalisation et du terrorisme

Resume Les recents attentats et tentatives d’attentats sur le sol francais, lies a la mouvance islamiste, ont amene les auteurs de cet article a se questionner sur ce qui peut pousser une personne a choisir le chemin de la lutte armee dans le cadre de croyances religieuses detournees. Ils se sont appuyes sur une revue internationale de la litterature psychologique et psychiatrique afin de tenter de degager les processus explicatifs sous-tendant le processus d’adhesion a une ideologie radicale et le basculements d’individus dans le terrorisme. Les auteurs se sont focalises sur trois axes principaux : une presentation generale du terrorisme et de ses liens eventuels avec la psychiatrie et la psychopathologie ; la figure du « loup solitaire », mais aussi des cellules terroristes organisees responsables d’action mieux coordonnees ; les donnees pouvant etre utilisables sur un plan pratique par les enqueteurs charges des investigations et des interrogatoires. Ils rappellent pour terminer les grands principes de la prise en charge des terroristes dans les processus de « deradicalisation » par le biais de protocoles visant a reinstituer un sentiment individuel positif d’existence. Au cours de ce travail de recherche, il est apparu que la psychopathologie ne pouvait expliquer les actions les plus preparees et les mieux organisees et que ce n’etait que dans la figure du loup solitaire que l’on pouvait souvent trouver des troubles graves de nature psychiatrique. Chez les « recrutes » pour le djihad et chez les auteurs d’actes terroristes, on observe neanmoins une dimension fonctionnelle paranoiaque dans la vision du monde ainsi qu’un etat d’insatisfaction existentielle. Ces individus trouvent dans l’ideologie extremiste proposee une spiritualite qui rassure et donne du sens a leur vie.

Parochial Altruists or Ideologues? An Agent Based Model of Commitment to Self Sacrifice

What motivates suicide attackers remains an open question. From an evolutionary perspective, commitment to suicide missions is puzzling since such behavior is fitness reducing. We model suicide terrorism by drawing on two fundamental human motivations: altruism and selfishness. Martyrdom can be viewed as altruistic- benefiting group members at a cost to oneself, as well as selfish- ideological belief in a profitable afterlife. Our simulations identify that some degree of both behaviors are essential in order to facilitate a commitment to sacrifice. Thus, manipulations of ideology and altruism can tip the threshold and set the agents on the path of martyrdom.

Persuasive Narratives and Costly Actions

Persuasive narratives can induce some individuals to engage in costly actions. Entrepreneurs of suicide missions frame the necessity of violent behavior within the context of persuasive narratives to attract potential recruits. Herein we report results from an experiment to test factors involved with costly action linked to a persuasive narrative. We recruited 164 participants (M = 21, SD = 5.20) and measured hormones, electrodermal activity, and personality to predict who would be influenced by the narrative's message. We found that the persuasive narrative we tested resulted in costly action by those who are high-perspective takers and are more physiologically aroused by the narrative. The findings fill lacunae in the literature, providing a novel approach to examine costly behavior (like martyrdom missions) in the laboratory.

Girl child soldiers

Journal of Paediatrics and Child HealthVolume 50, Issue 9 p. 742-743 Heads UpFree Access Girl child soldiers First published: 25 August 2014 https://doi.org/10.1111/jpc.12700_4AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Much has been written about child soldiers. A recent review estimated that 40% are girls, a total of about 120 000 girls world-wide.1 Girls are vulnerable to sexual abuse, torture and psychological trauma, with a huge long-term impact on their mental, physical and reproductive health. Almost half of girl soldiers describe their primary role as ‘fighters’, other roles being cooks, kitchen hands, performing menial tasks, etc. Children are often considered expendable and may be used in ambushes, as human shields, to sweep minefields and on suicide missions. At least a third of survivors have combat injuries. Girls forced into excessive manual labour frequently have back injuries. Some armed groups give children drugs and alcohol prior to battle and addiction hampers rehabilitation. Girl soldiers are often raped or ‘given as a wife’ and risk sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy, genital tract injury and lifelong psychological scarring. This deeply disturbing but very informative review suggests how health-care professionals from high-income countries can contribute to prevention and to rehabilitation of girl soldiers.1 Reference 1Stevens AJ. Arch. Dis. Child. 2014; 99: 458– 462. CrossrefWeb of Science®Google Scholar Reviewer: David Isaacs, Children's Hospital at Westmead (david.isaacs@health.nsw.gov.au) Volume50, Issue9September 2014Pages 742-743 ReferencesRelatedInformation

Response to Marc Sageman's “The Stagnation in Terrorism Research”

Dr. Sageman makes a good point that despite the influx of government funding in the last decade, terrorism scholars have not been able to answer what he calls a “simple question”—what leads a perso...

Music and Dance in the Japanese Military “Comfort Women” System: A Case Study in the Performing Arts, War, and Sexual Violence

Two Women's Stories Yi Yongsu was born in the southeastern Korean city of Daegu in 1928 during the second decade of Japanese colonial rule in Korea, which lasted from 1910 to 1945. (1) Her family was quite poor and was unable to afford her schooling; she worked in factory from very young age. But she was keen to study, and so she attended evening classes. She had always loved to sing and received some formal training in music. In 1944, at the age of fifteen, she was taken from Daegu by Japanese businessman and placed on boat to Taiwan. On the boat she was raped repeatedly by soldiers and others. After that she was taken to Hsinchu, about sixty kilometers southwest of Taipei, where she was placed in sex camp, imprisoned, and forced to have sex with soldiers. She had been made sexual slave of the Japanese military. The camp was near an air force airport that served as base for kamikaze pilots, and as the war turned desperate for the Japanese, the number of suicide missions increased dramatically. One of these pilots came to visit Yi Yongsu several times and fell in love with her. One day, he told her that he was leaving on suicide mission and wouldn't be coming back. gave me his photo and the toiletries he had been using. He had come to me twice before and said he had got venereal disease from me. He said he would take the disease to his grave as my present to him. Then he taught me song. (2) In 2004 she sang this song for me at her home in Daegu: I take off with courage, leaving Taiwan behind, Riding and rising above waves of gold and silver clouds. There is no one to see me off, And this little one is the only one who cries for me. I take off with courage, leaving Hsinchu behind, Riding and rising above waves of gold and silver clouds. There is no one to see me off, And the only one who cries for me is (3) Through the song Yi Yongsu learned where she was--she hadn't known before. The song was Hikokinori no uta (Song of the pilot), Japanese military song (gunka) associated with kamikaze pilots. He had changed the words, adding his own place of departure and putting in the Japanese nickname he had given her, Toshiko. After the war, Yi Yongsu returned to the newly partitioned Korean peninsula and began her long life as an outsider in postwar South Korea. She was reluctant to marry, and she was mainlined into the burgeoning South Korean domestic drinking house industry, where she had to pour drinks, sing, and socialize with male customers. Later she ran shop, worked in markets, and sold insurance. She never bore children, although she married an elderly man at the age of sixty, feeling a little sad that I would die without ever having had the opportunity to wear white veil. (4) In 1992 she came forward and began her life as an activist, seeking justice for herself and other women who suffered as she had during the war. (5) Mun Okju was born in 1924, also in Daegu, to family of four children. Her father died when she was eight, and her family was desperately poor. She did housework, worked in slipper factory, and took some classes at gwonbeou, private school and agency for traditional female entertainers (variously called gisaeng, giiiyeo, or other names). As teenager, before completing her courtesan training, she was already being called to sing at drinking parties. (6) In 1940 Mun Okju was abducted by Japanese military personnel, sent to Manchuria, and forced to provide sexual services for between twenty and thirty soldiers day. She lost her virginity this way. She escaped her enslavement in Manchuria and returned to Korea but was conscripted back into sexual slavery and spent the remainder of the war shuttled around Southeast Asia in sexual bondage to the Japanese military. An accomplished singer, she was often called to sing at officers' banquets and farewell parties, often alongside Japanese geishas. …

Motivating operatives for suicide missions and conventional terrorist attacks

We investigate the problem of motivating terrorist operatives for suicide missions and conventional terrorist attacks when operatives have either self-interested or social preferences that are not observable by the terrorist organization. We characterize the screening mechanism for selecting operatives according to their social preferences and determine under what conditions a terrorist group will prefer to utilize suicide versus conventional tactics. For example, when operatives are intrinsically motivated and likely to be represented in the pool of potential recruits, a terrorist organization will be more likely to employ suicide attacks as its sole tactic of choice.

An Icarian Fall

An Icarian Fall John W. Crowley (bio) Death of a Rebel: The Charlie Fenton Story by Scott Donaldson (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2012. x + 188 pages. $65) To learn the meaning of his leap to death What need to know the wounds he carried down To his crushing sleep? These are the opening lines of Karl Shapiro’s in memoriam for F. O. Matthiessen, whose death leap in 1950 shocked his contemporaries and still resonates among older scholars of American literature. Charles Fenton clipped the New York Times story on the incident and tucked it in his copy of Matthiessen’s masterwork, American Renaissance (1941). In 1960 Fenton jumped off the roof of the tallest hotel in Durham, North Carolina, where he was a rising star in Duke’s department of English. His momentum launched him beyond the sidewalk and into the street. Fenton’s death occurred only a year before the shotgun suicide of his literary idol, Ernest Hemingway. Aghast at Arthur Mizener’s probing biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway vowed to repel any such encroachment upon his own psychic depths. Fenton was among the young academic Turks planning to do just that in their Ph.D. theses. When discouraging letters did not deter them, Hemingway threatened to withhold permission to quote from his work—a prohibition that would have wrecked their careers. Hemingway ultimately relented, [End Page iii] and Fenton promised to confine himself to the author’s juvenilia. After publishing The Apprenticeship of Ernest Hemingway in 1954, Fenton proved to be a promising and prolific critic. But, despite publishing some essays, a biography of Stephen Vincent Benet, plus a volume of his letters, he was denied tenure at Yale. Nevertheless he still seemed poised for a fine academic career. Why?—the inescapable question posed by every suicide, especially when a literal failure of life trumps ostensible success. William Styron asserts in Darkness Visible (1990) that depression involves so many interlocking factors in “fathomless permutations” that determining a definitive cause is impossible. Scott Donaldson agrees, but he does adduce some of the likely factors in Fenton’s death. In the psychological literature Styron found consensus on a single point: “Loss in all of its manifestations is the touchstone of depression—in the progress of the disease and, most likely, in its origin.” Along these lines Donaldson traces Fenton’s recurrent dark spells to a childhood trauma he never revealed and then to his desertion from the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War ii. (See “Bomber Boy” in this issue.) By convicting himself of cowardice, Fenton lost for himself the respect his peers so willingly accorded him. William Faulkner would later invent a head wound he supposedly sustained in the RCAF: his steel badge of putative courage. Fenton, for his part, would inflate the count of his combat missions. But, in doing so, he sold short the true measure of his heroism: on bomber runs that amounted to suicide missions—only five of the forty men who had trained with him survived. Nowadays Fenton would be diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. But, had a medical palliative existed in his time, Fenton would have renounced it; for he attributed the lesion on his conscience to purely moral causes. The paradox, as Donaldson suggests, is that only an exceptionally principled man would have taken on the full weight of responsibility for betraying his principles. Although Fenton settled down after the war into midcentury American conventionality, embracing the work ethic and the homely domesticity expected of a man when maturity was the watchword, his rebellious streak eventually overcame his self-restraint. He went rogue in 1960, when he fell in love with a graduate student. In the generation before feminism, such an affair, if discreet, was generally tolerated, and often it was normalized by divorce and remarriage. But sanctions against conspicuous adultery were strongly enforced, and their imposition on Fenton precipitated a second major trauma. Like his desertion it centered on loss, the loss of whatever faith in his own moral fiber he had regained since the war. Fenton plunged into the same “gray drizzle of horror” that Styron describes: a species of despair that, “owing to...

Ariel Merari, 2010, Driven to Death : Psychological and Social Aspects of Suicide Terrorism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 315 p.

With Driven to Death, Ariel Merari, who has studied terrorism for more than thirty years, offers a crucial advance in our understanding of the causal mechanisms behind suicide missions thanks to groundbreaking research on a sample of incarcerated Palestinian would-be suicide bombers – a suicide terrorist attack being defined as “a situation in which a person intentionally kills himself (or herself) for the purpose of killing others in the service of a political or ideological goal” (Chapter 1...

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan: A Layeha [Rules and Regulations] for Mujahidin

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments The translator is enormously grateful to Inayatulhaq Yasini, of the BBC Pashto Service, London for hosting and helping the translator in translating the Layeha. Without his assistance, the translation would not have taken its current form. The translator is also grateful to Owen McEldowney for editing the draft. The errors, however, are all the translator's. Notes 1. The translation used is from Muhammad Taqi Usmani, The Meaning of the Noble Quran. Vol. I & II (Karachi: Maktabah Maariful Quran, 2006). 2. The Kalima is the key to enter Islam or becoming a Muslim. After saying this, one is considered as Muslim. In the current context, it may mean Islam. 3. The Taliban call themselves Mujahidin rather than the Taliban. 4. “Leadership” can mean the Supreme Shura [Council], or Mullah Muhammad Omer Mujahid or his deputy. Here it makes more sense to be used in the sense of the Supreme Council as later in article 82 it is stated that only the Supreme Council can amend this Layeha. It suggests that the Supreme Council formulated the Layeha and only it has the power to amend it. 5. A category of Islamic scholar. 6. “Responsible individual” is used throughout the Layeha for someone who is in charge of a district or a province. In most cases, titles such as district governor and provincial governor are used but it seems that in some districts and provinces the Taliban do not have effective control and proper shadow officials. They just have entrusted responsibility to some individual for those districts and provinces. 7. That is, he starts believing like the Taliban that it is a “slave and infidel government.” 8. A certificate stating, for example, that this person no longer works for the “puppet government”. 9. That is, of the fact this person has stopped working for the “puppet government”. 10. These are all famous juristic manuals of Islamic law that are followed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and most other Muslim countries. 11. It seems like giving aman, which under Islamic law mean protection or quarter but here it is in return for working for the Taliban in the ranks of the opponents rather than granting aman for humanitarian reasons. 12. That is, they cannot be held responsible for the harm or death. 13. They can be left on the spot if it is not possible to take them to safety, but they cannot be killed. 14. The actual wording means to “spoil” or to “pamper.” 15. Fitna is called mischief in the primary sources of Islamic law, which generally means war. Spies here are equated with the helpers of those who are fighting the Taliban. 16. Under Islamic law, khams can be spent only on certain matters such as the well-being of fighters. 17. That is, actual fighting, ambush, information collection mentioned earlier. 18. Regional administrator is usually responsible for more than one province. 19. That is, more weapons for Jihad should be given as a reward. 20. He cannot sit as a judge in cases in which he himself or his colleagues are a party. 21. Here reference is made to smaller groups/divisions of Mujahidin. 22. How they conduct themselves on daily basis. 23. The gist of the article seems to be to learn from successes and failures and devise future plans accordingly. 24. The actual term used is “istis'sh’hadi,” which is generally wrongly translated as “suicide missions.” 25. The person leading congregational prayer in the mosque. The term “imam” is not used in the sense here as it is used for a leader generally and in the Layeha for Mullah Muhammad Omer Mujahid. 26. The search should be conducted only in the presence of these three persons. 27. Posing as the Taliban.

The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism (review)

Reviewed by: The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism Aaron M. Hoffman The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism, by Ami Pedahzur. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. 215 pp. $22.50. On Thursday, April 12, 1984 four Fatah operatives commandeered the number 300 Egged bus en route from Tel Aviv, making hostages out of the thirty-four passengers on board. Although Israel had a unit within its police force (the "Yamam") that was specifically trained to deal with hostage events, Chief of Staff Moshe Levy "arbitrarily" called on Sayeret Matkal, a reconnaissance unit within the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), to conduct the rescue operation. Sayeret's mission ended after approximately nine minutes. During that time, two of the kidnappers and one of the hostages were killed and seven more passengers wounded. The remaining hostage takers were captured and summarily executed by operatives from the General Security Services acting on orders issued by GSS Chief Avraham Shalom. The 1984 hostage drama was neither the first nor the last time members of the Israeli government used the IDF's Sayeret Matkal instead of the more specialized Yamam to deal with Palestinian terrorism. Although Sayeret's forces often underperformed Yamam's and were occasionally responsible for political crises, Prime Minister after Prime Minister turned to the IDF for military solutions to Israel's terrorism problem. According to Ami Pedahzur, [End Page 163] in his fine book The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism, the Israeli government's preference for the "war model" can be traced to public pressure on democratic leaders to respond to terrorism decisively. The result is that the Israeli government consistently chooses counterproductive counterterrorism policies that help the Israeli public vent their collective spleen, but also provoke more terrorism and other political ills. Although Pedahzur's thesis about the problems associated with war-like responses to terrorism is not new, he approaches his analysis of Israel's counterterrorism dilemma in a novel way: through a series of original case studies of the Mossad's involvement in efforts to thwart Palestinian terror organizations. The case studies show the political tensions that shape Israeli counterterrorism policy and underscore Pedahzur's argument that the Israeli government remains committed to the war model even though the approach fails repeatedly. The case studies are the book's strongest suit, providing behind-the-scenes accounts of some of the Israeli secret services' finest moments (e.g., the rescue of a hijacked airliner in Entebbe) and humiliating defeats (e.g., the botched attempt to assassinate Khaled Mashal in Jordan). Pedahzur's narrative clearly benefits from interviews he did with members of the intelligence community that enable him to go beyond journalistic accounts of these events and provide an analysis of what went right and wrong during Israeli counterterrorism efforts. The Israeli Secret Service is less successful, however, at explaining Israel's attraction to the war model. Pedahzur argues the war model is ineffective as evidenced by the persistence of Palestinian terrorism even in the face of Israel's most aggressive efforts to prevent further attack. On the other hand, Israel's experiments with Pedahzur's favored "defensive" approach to counterterrorism produced a number of important successes. The most notable of these was the sharp reduction in suicide attacks after Israel constructed a separation barrier between it and the West Bank. Pedahzur reasons, therefore, that the war model's capacity to prevent terrorism cannot be its main selling point. The problem is that the evidence he marshals in support of this argument is not entirely persuasive. Demonstrating the weakness of the war model requires showing both that it failed to control Palestinian terrorism and that more effective alternatives were available. Pedhazur's evidence only addresses the first part of this formula. His argument that the separation barrier is proof of the superiority of the defensive model is convincing only if one ignores the daily rocket attacks that Hamas launched from Gaza in lieu of the suicide missions it previously conducted from the West Bank. Finally, Pedahzur's claim that democracies, like Israel, have a built-in inclination to rely on the war model overlooks the European experience with terrorism, which relied...

Hamas and the Israeli state: A ‘violent dialogue’

Through an analysis of Hamas’s suicide missions and Israel’s strategy of ‘shock and awe’, this article advances a concept of ‘violent dialogue.’ Drawing on Gadamer’s work, as well as some of the points that emerge out of the Gadamer—Derrida encounter, this concept is meant to explicate how acts of political violence create a certain type of communion between those engaged in violent conflict. It will suggest that the appearance of political violent acts does not represent the end of a dialogue between the violent actors, but rather the emergence of a specific form of dialogue under the subject matter of violence. It is argued that this communion takes place outside the intentions of the protagonists, and despite their attempts to separate from each other. This is significant for academic analysis of political violence in general, and for our perspective and outlook on the Israeli—Palestinian conflict in particular.

Calculated, Passionate, Pious Extremism:Beyond a Rational Choice Theory of Suicide Terrorism

AbstractThis article proposes a theoretical framework to identify the main ideal types of motivations underlying voluntary suicide missions in terrorist campaigns, with special reference to Sunni extremists, such as Al-Qaeda and its allies. Based on empirical evidence from several suicide missions, the paper argues for conceptualising a specific kind of rationality qualitatively different from a calculation of costs and benefits and in addition to the complex constellation of affectual orientations driving militants. On one hand, martyrdom videos and biographical information on suicide attackers, as well as interviews with would-be suicide bombers, make it plausible to hypothesise not only a type of instrumental rationality in which suicide missions are viewed as adequate means for both egoistic and altruistic goals, but also affects and feeling states, such as outrage and humiliation, that create a desire for revenge. On the other hand, militants’ frequent references to a series of absolute values support the theory of an axiological rationality of suicide terrorism, meant as a disposition to conform unconditionally one’s action to certain moral duties and normative expectations regardless of their consequences. From this perspective, success in recruiting and inspiring suicide bombers, demonstrated by Al-Qaeda’s propagandistic call for jihad and martyrdom in defence of Islam and oppressed Muslim countries, cannot be explained only by militants’ search for social consideration or by their cognitive view of a strategic use of suicide bombings. Such responsive participation in suicide missions is also based on a wide set of emotions and militants’ adhesion to superior principles requiring ultimate sacrifice and indifference to other costs.