What Does a Suicide Bomber Think?

Speech delivered at International Seminar on Counter Terrorism organized to celebrate the National Security Guard Raising Day at the NSG Training Centre on 14-15 October, 2022

To the modern sensibility and even to some religious clerics, like the regular Muslim fuqaha, suicide attacks/bombings (istishhad) may be a highly abhorrent deed of inexcusable barbarity; but to most terrorists, any suicide attacker or bomber is the ultimate martyr, a bold romantic who courts Death on his or her own terms, compels it to a tryst on his or her given time and place, thus subverting even the inevitable to do the bomber’s bidding.

Some of the misguided onlookers may misconstrue the horrific acts of suicide bombing as an act of bravery, but in the mind of the bomber ‘all is toys’ and the act a release from the constraints and trappings of existence, the ultimate rebellion against Nature and Fate itself.

What could be the reasons that push an individual to not only date Death as it were, but to have no qualms or compunctions in dragging other lives, often innocent civilians – women and children — to its own harrowing end? What could be the psychological, sociological, ideological and circumstantial factors for committing such acts of pure savagery in the final moments of one’s existence?

Today we are going to deliberate on some of these highly vexed and disturbing questions, in an attempt to not only diagnose the problem, but to possibly get some leads so as to combat or prevent the growing incidence of suicide bombing, which today is too frequent to be ignored across our northwestern borders, and might spill over on to our side.

Upsurge in Recent Decades

In simple terms, suicide bombing is any violent attack which entails the attacker detonating an explosive, and where he or she has accepted his/her own death as a direct result of the attacking method.

A PBIED attack — by which we mean Person-Borne Improvised Explosive Device — is any attack where the attacker puts on an IED on his or her own person, as opposed to say a terrorist using an aircraft or a car/truck to conduct an attack.

It is interesting that suicide attacks have been used in active warfare for a long time, but unfortunately it is only in recent times that suicide bombings have been conducted in peaceful times as weapons of terrorism around the world. In fact, experts like Jonathan Kay point out that very few suicide attacks occurred from the end of World War II until the 1980s around the world — a period of over 30 years.

 However, the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism has issued a report which states that between 1981 and September 2015, a total of 4,814 suicide attacks have taken place in over 40 countries, killing over 45,000 people. Surprisingly, ninety percent (90%) of these attacks – barring Sri Lanka - have occurred in countries with large Muslim populations – be it in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Palestinian Territories/Israel and Pakistan.

History of Suicide Attacks

If we wish to look back at the history of suicide attacks, we might have to go back to at least 2000 years, to the time and place when Jesus Christ, himself a Jew, was peacefully spreading his faith in Judea that was under Roman occupation. Roman army alleged that some of his supporters had links with the zealots in Zakari (ph). These zealots often walked up to a Roman soldier in a square, pulled out a knife and slit his throat, knowing full well that the Roman soldiers standing nearby would immediately hunt them down to death, which they almost invariably did. Surprisingly, one of these insurrectionists was John the Baptist, cousin of Jesus and son of Mother Mary’s cousin sister Elizabeth, who was eventually beheaded by the Romans. Jesus was also executed or crucified not just because of his close ties with John the Baptist, but his claim of being the Messiah (the anointed King) that was misconceived as a challenge to Caesar.

The other notable suicide attackers in history were followers of Hasan-i-Sabah, who was a Nizari Ismaili Shia and created a band of fidayeen (the first person to give this name to suicide attackers) from out of his group of hashasheen (drug-induced asassins) who killed many Seljuk officials, most notably Nizamul Mulk (the great vizier who started the present madrasa system and wrote the Arthashastra of Persian Sunni Kings called the Siyasatnama). 

In the 19th century Europe, the violent supporters of Bakunin’s Anarchism called Dynamiters have been included among suicide attackers, although these nihilists bombed more than conducting suicide attacks. Then we come to the famous Japanese Kamikaze (a word that in Japanese means the divine wind). These military suicide aviators were part of the Japanese Special Attack Units that fought Allied naval vessels towards the end of World War II. The Kamikaze aircraft were essentially pilot-guided explosive missiles, purpose-built or converted from conventional aircraft. The pilots attempted to crash their aircraft (which were loaded with bombs, torpedoes, etc) into enemy ships in what was called a "body attack" (tai-atari). About 3,000 of such attacks were made and around 50 ships were sunk.

But the beginning of suicide bombings as part of terrorist attacks in peacetime began when Shiite Hezbollah militants blew up the US marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, and from then on suicide bombing became a “tool of modern terrorist warfare”. From here, the idea of terrorist suicide bombings was taken up by the Sri Lankan LTTE (as most of you know) and was used extensively from 1987 onwards, killing about a thousand people in many attacks over several years and unfortunately our own former Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi was targeted and killed in 1991, followed by former Sri Lankan President Premadasa in 1993.

 We have recently seen Boko Haram in West Africa (in countries like Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger) kidnapping girls and young women to turn them into suicide bombers. Some of these suicide bombers have been girls below the age of 15. In 2017, The Economist reported that Boko Haram even surpassed the LTTE in the number of female suicide bombers. Of the 434 bombers the group deployed between April 2011 and June 2017, a total of 244 were identified as female.

 Meanwhile, suicide bombing continues in Afghanistan, with its incidents increasing since the coming of the Taliban to power. According to an India Today report over 100 schoolgirls belonging to the Shia Hazara community were killed in the most recent 30th September 2022 suicide bombings at a Kabul school (attributed by some to ISIS-K). This is just one of the many suicide bombings in the Af-Pak region in last few years.

 If this situation continues, there is fear that Pakistan’s ISI or other terror groups in the Af-Pak region might send in such suicide bombers into India through drug routes, in the name of fighting for Kashmiris or for defending Islam against allegedly insulting remarks against the religion.

Why Suicide Bombing: Epistemic Curiosity

 Now, one of the strategic advantages of conducting suicide attacks for terrorists is that it gives their inhuman cause sufficient creative dissonance in the minds of the impressionable youth. Even the most right-minded individual at times wonders whether there is really something so noble about this monstrosity that people are willing to die for its perverted cause. The message becomes more piquant if there are women involved.

 Unlike hijackings and hostage taking which require a high level of sophistication, suicide bombing also requires relatively less training and it is very cost effective. It also inflicts great damage and grabs maximum media attention. Human bombers can also change plans on the go if there is a change in the situation. This is why a suicide bomber is sometimes called a poor man’s ‘smart bomb’.

Single Motive Theories

 As to what motivates a bomber to die and kill fellow humans in a suicide attack, many theories exist.

 To begin with there is single motive theories like say of Mark Sageman who claims that alienation, lack of emotional support and disenfranchisement of youth leads them to conducting suicide attacks.

 However, Robert Pape in 2005 found from his interviews with failed suicide bombers that liberation from foreign occupation was the main reason for them to conduct suicide attacks, be it in Palestine, Iraq or Afghanistan, or for them to go to Europe to conduct attacks there for their national liberation.

 Speckhard and Akhemdova (2005) interviewed Chechen jihadis who had attempted suicide attacks and in their interviews found that some of the foiled suicide bombings had psychological disorders and suffered personal loss and trauma during an ongoing conflict, prompting them to avenge deaths of their lost ones.

 Nasra Hassan in 2001 interviewed many Palestinians groomed to become suicide bombers and said that suicide bombers are neither psychologically deranged, nor social misfits. She attributed the problem to religious and political motivations, the dream for upholding religious values and truths, being in presence of God or prophet and for the Palestinian community.

Social Motivation Theory

There is also a large segment of social motivation theorists, who claim that social pressure even when it is not apparent, but is internalised or induced is the real cause, many times unbeknownst even to the bomber. For instance, the kidnapped girls of Boko Haram knew their conservative households will not accept them back once they had lived with terrorists for a long time. They were then radically indoctrinated by Boko Haram’s own female instructors.

The desire to be remembered as martyrs by one’s community or even an entire nation has also been studied in the context of Kamikaze pilots by Ohnuki-Tierney, 2006 and has also found some empirical support in researches on prospective and failed bombers in Palestine, Sri Lanka (Bloom, 2005; Gambetta, 2005; Stern, 2003).

Search for a Single Authentic Motive

 A lot of research, through interviews of failed bombers etc, has offered us many motives and theories. Jessica Stern and Mia Bloom list a wide variety of reasons and Ami Pedazhur says every case may have its own motive. This does not help strategic experts, particularly those who wish to understand and prevent such bombings. There is a lot of difference of opinion in this regard.

Marc Sageman completely discounts religious motivation and focuses mainly on the psychological and personal, Gunaratna gives importance mainly to ideological reasons etc. Others put all these theories under three broad categories: Personal, Social and Ideological Causes.

Still, experts are looking for that one theory that lies behind these diverse findings.

‘The Quest for Significance Theory’

The one theory to have come closest in this regard is ‘The Quest for Significance Theory’. The chief exponents of this theory are Arie Kruglanski, Edward Orehek, Jocelyn Belanger among others.

According to the theory, the Human Species is perhaps the Only Species Fully Aware of its Own Mortality. This Awareness of Mortality carries with it the Threat of Insignificance and human beings try to strive and achieve distinction in various fields to make their temporary and pointless existence appear significant. This drive to excel — be it in politics, business, science, culture, academia, etc. to make our short human existences worthwhile and the will to achieve a sublimated immortality in the collective memory of people is what impels human progress.

 This ‘Quest for Significance’ finds few means other than martyrdom in underdeveloped and conflict prone societies. The only way to be famous after death or to live on in the collective memory of a community through a sense of sublimated immortality is provided by martyrdom in failing or failed societies or countries. Some of these bombers even migrate to other more developed countries to attain this dubious significance.

 But the martyrdom of a lone suicide bomber is much greater than that of a soldier or an insurgent dying in the battlefield. In the case of suicide bombing, the credit or blame goes entirely to one individual for the operation, and the death and killings here get maximum media coverage and PR.

 In fact, one does not need to be a trained soldier or militant to become a suicide bomber. One does not go to a battlefield here, but just walks into a bazaar, a mosque, a school or a discotheque and by pressing a lever one gets free ticket to a dubiously perceived immortality, achievement, if not spiritual glory.

 With this explanation, the theory of significance manages to incorporate, the personal, psychological, ideological and social factors listed in other theories.

The Three Ns’

Exponents of this theory also provide a method for solutions. They claim that if we want to prevent suicide bombings we need to employ means to lower the sense of significance attached to martyrdom in societies afflicted with extremist and terrorist groups. The war-like narrative must be replaced with a narrative of peace from the communal memory.

These theoreticians thus posit three ways (3N’s) this can be done.

a)   The Need –Let members of the vulnerable community be shown Sun Tzu’s “golden bridge” of retreat, so that it does not produce suicide attackers or what Secretary of State Rumsfeld called ‘Dead-enders’. If you could help a failed or failing state or community on to a peaceful path and manage to offer a life of dignity, honour and significance in society, - either in the realms of politics, commerce, trade, business, arts, sciences, media, sports etc. there will be more avenues open for the community to find significance of existence other than so-called “martyrdom”. If there is also greater respect, redressal of grievances, solutions to real or perceived sense of injustice one can curtail the menace of bothe terrorism and suicide bombers. The restoration of the political process, reinstatement of rule of law and law and order, the restoration of everyday peaceful activities of life, education, healthcare, economic benefits would eventually prove useful. Thus,, the unsaid needs of the target community should be addressed.

 b)   The Narrative – After Needs comes Narratives. There should be programmes for identifying, parsing and busting the Narratives or at least for sowing doubts or confusion in the religious or ideological concepts that say ‘martyrs’ are to be remembered and valorised. We need to introduce caveats and get for instance even Salafi scholars (like Bin Laden’s now reclaimed religious guru Dr Fadl – Sayyed Imam Al Sharif) to pronounce that suicide attacks would led one to hell not heaven and that their community heroes were pious souls not killers of the innocent. If the suicide bomber develops even one percent doubt about the outcome of his or her heinous deed he or she would desist.

 c)    The Network – As important as Narrative is the Network. Target the ideological and physical facilitators of suicide bombers, the extremist ideologues, social media handlers, the maker of bombs, the support staff. The publicity network and PR ecosystem of extremism in target communities needs to be taken down.

 There is also the need to promote a rival network of moderate and qualified ideologues on media, social media and in politics, society etc. One needs to get reclaimed and deradicalised mullahs and former terrorists to speak out, they are the best to know how to persuade their own people away from these evil ways.

 There is also a lot of counter-narrative literature by Islamic scholars and anti-Maoist scholars available, which we need to use and here is just a sampling of the most noteworthy.

 Even though I cannot say that this theory of ‘Quest for Significance’ has solved the problem altogether it has certainly opened a door for more actionable approaches both at the diagnostic and prescriptive levels and we should encourage and ourselves develop more conceptual insights and methods in this regard.

Thank you for your patience.

PICTURE OF THE MEMENTO (RIGHT) PRESENTED TO ME BY THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE NSG TRAINING CENTRE AFTER THE CONFERENCE SESSION,