Suicide Bombings

In an age when the Western world is preoccupied with worries about weapons of mass destruction in terrorist hands, terrorists in many parts of the world are using a more basic device as a weapon - life itself. This use of life as weapon or suicide bombing has become a weapon of choice among terrorist groups because of their lethality and ability to cause mayhem and fear.For the first time, Suicide Bombings analyses concrete data from The Suicide Terrorism Database in Flinders University, Australia to explain what motivates attackers. The evidence from the database largely discredits the common wisdom that the personality of suicide bombers and their religion are the principal cause. It shows that though religion can play a vital role in recruiting and motivating potential future suicide bombers, the driving force is not religion but a cocktail of motivations including politics, humiliation, revenge, retaliation and altruism.