Suicide attacks, like all other terrorist attacks, are first and foremost aimed at giving their perpetrators widespread media coverage, thereby inflating their own image.

It should be pointed out that suicide attacks by terrorists are nothing new; the phenomenon appeared among the Jewish Sicaris in the 1st century, among the Moslem Hashishiyun in the 11th century, and among Asians in the 18th century. In the twentieth century too, members of Palestinian organisations perpetrated high-risk attacks which almost cross the border into the realm of suicide terrorism. However, the perpetrators of these attacks nevertheless stood a chance - however minute - to survive; their remaining alive did not tarnish their success in carrying out the attack.

However, "modern" suicide terrorism is unique and unlike its predecessors. In the last two decades suicide attacks have been carried out by one or more persons who were aware that they are "human time-bombs." The suicide bomber carries the explosives on his body or in a vehicle driven by himself and, by personal choice and with full self-awareness, he approaches a previously chosen target and blows himself up. We can define a "modern" suicide attack as a violent, politically motivated attack, carried out in a deliberate state of awareness by a person who blows himself up together with his chosen target. The pre-meditated certain death of the perpetrator is the pre-condition for the success of the attack.

Suicide attacks have been carried out in Israel since 1993 and continued sporadically until 1999. Since the beginning of so-called "al-Aqsa Intifada," the Palestinian terrorist organisations, this time assisted by the Palestinian Authority, have once again begun perpetrating suicide bombings against the Israeli civilian population. Between October 2000 and July 2001, there were 18 suicide bombings and a number of others were thwarted. The two leading terrorist organisations perpetrating this type of attack are Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in Palestine. It was these organisations that first imported this type of attack into Israel in the 1990s Activists from these two groups, who were deported from Israel to Lebanon, received military instruction from Hezbollah and the Iranian "Revolutionary Guards" who provided hospitality for them in Lebanon. These organisations still receive assistance from Hezbollah in the perpetration of terror attacks.

To date, the two organisations have carried out between 56 and 85 suicide attacks aimed at civilian and military targets in Israeli and the disputed territories, which have resulted in hundreds of casualties, and have seriously affected the morale of the Israeli public. Suicide attacks carried out in February and March 1996 apparently influenced the outcome of the Prime Ministerial election of May ’96. The outcome of the suicide attacks in Israel also played a role in the fact that the Israeli security establishment came to regard terrorism as a strategic threat, rather that just a tactical one

In general, suicide terror attacks in Israel are no different from those carried out worldwide. As of the middle of 2001, there have been well over 300 suicide attacks carried out in 14 countries by 17 terror organisations.

Modern suicide bombings was introduced by the Shi’ite terrorist organisation Hezbollah in 1983 in Lebanon, and it was in Lebanon that this modus operandi was refined throughout the 1980s. Altogether, 50 suicide bombings were carried out in Lebanon

The perpetrators of the suicide bombings in Lebanon did not achieve strategic results. Hezbollah succeeded in hastening the withdrawal of the foreign forces from Lebanon and harassed the IDF in Lebanon. However, the suicide bombings were not a significant factor in Israel’s decision to withdraw from the security zone. Moreover, in the 1990s, Hezbollah drastically reduced the number of suicide attacks due to cost-benefit considerations.

The Hezbollah’s success in this sphere was mostly in achieving respect; the group became a symbol of sacrifice and a source of inspiration for terrorist organisations worldwide.

The most prominent of these organisations was the LTTE, "The Tamil Tigers." This organisation, currently fighting for an independent Tamil state, began carrying out suicide bombings in 1987 and has since perpetrated over 200 such attacks. These bombings were particularly lethal and caused hundreds of casualties. Their targets are usually senior political and military officials in Sri Lanka. This organisation is the only one in the world to succeed in assassinating two heads of state by suicide bombings. A suicide attack killed former Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, while he was on an election campaign tour in Madras on 21 May 1991. Then, in May of 1993, President Premadassa of Sri Lanka was killed by a suicide attacker, along with 22 other people. On 17 December 1999, the organisation attempted to assassinate Chandrika Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka, using a female suicide bomber. The President was wounded but survived.

The organisation has never been particularly mindful of the safety of passers-by and has never spared innocent bystanders who happened to be in the vicinity of their attacks. The LTTE suicide squads draw their inspiration from a combination of a strong nationalistic motive and the charismatic leadership of the head of the organisation. The LTTE are still the most active group using suicide terrorism, but so far have not succeeded in achieving their aims.

The Kurdish PKK, a secessionist "secular Islamic" movement, perpetrated 16 suicide attacks in the years ’96-’99 (plus 5 foiled attacks), which killed 20 people and wounded scores . However, these suicide attacks did little to persuade the Turkish government to accept the organisation’s demands for Kurdish autonomy.

The Egyptian organisations, "Gama’a al-Islamiyya" and "Egyptian Jihad," carried out two suicide attacks-one in Croatia in October ’95, and the other at the Egyptian embassy in Karachi, Pakistan in November ’95. Osama bin Laden’s organisation "al-Qaida," was responsible for two simultaneous suicide bombings against the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, in which 224 people were killed and about five thousand wounded. But these attacks, too, failed to obtain their strategic political aims beyond the casualties which they caused. Another suicide attack carried out apparently by al-Qaida, or at least in collaboration with it, was perpetrated by two suicide bombers who blew themselves up in a boat in Aden harbour next to the USS Cole, killing 17 US sailors.

In June and July 2000 Chechnyan militants fighting against the Russian army joined the circle of suicide bombers. To date, Chechnyan suicide bombers have carried out at least 7 attacks, in which scores were wounded and over one hundred Russian soldiers and police officers were killed.

For most of the organisations who have used these tactics, the common denominator is their success in causing large-scale casualties and negatively influencing public morale, while at the same time entirely failing to change regimes or to force their governments to surrender to their strategic demands.

However, it should be pointed out that in certain political circumstances, the perpetrators have succeeded in delaying strategic political processes for brief periods of time, such as the case with the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and between the Tamils and the Sinhalese.

From seventeen years of dealing with suicide terrorism, the Israeli public can testify that the suicide terrorist weapon is not a decisive one. Nor has it altered the balance of power between the State of Israel and the terrorist organisations in favour of the latter.

In all probability, Israel will be obliged to continue dealing with the threat of suicide terrorism, as the use of "human bombs" is unlikely to be abandoned by the Palestinian Authority and its allies among the fundamentalist terror organisations. Moreover, the suicide bombings are unlikely to cease, even if the political process is resumed. Therefore, Israel must deal with this challenge on two main planes: on the intelligence or operational level and on the psychological plane.

On the operational level, a successful response requires comprehensive knowledge of the apparatus for the recruitment and training of the suicide bombers. This apparatus also operates on two parallel tracks, selection and training of the suicide bomber, and the operational preparation of the attack. On the first track, the potential suicide bomber must be pinpointed, either when he joins the organisation or during his "basic training" period. Usually, the person who enlisted the suicide bomber also accompanies him throughout his military training and his spiritual preparation for the attack. Meanwhile, the operational groundwork is laid for the attack. This includes preparing a safe-house for the bomber, acquiring and hiding weapons, preparation of the explosives, and finally, transfer of the attacker and the explosives to the target area.

All of these preparations are the primary target for an intelligence operation. This type of activity requires the use of human, technical, and operational measures, in order to neutralise the suicide attack in its preparatory stage. If the suicide bomber has already been dispatched to the intended target, everything must be done by the security forces, as well as mobile and stationary technical devices, to try and minimise the physical damage of the attack by keeping the attacker away from enclosed and crowded areas.

In addition to coping physically with suicide bombers, it is also important to deal with the psychological aspects. This requires an intensive educational effort by experts in the fields of psychology and counter-terrorism. Within this framework, the general public in Israel must be informed of the real size and strength of the terrorist organisations with which Israel must contend, their goals in using this particular type of terror, and the propaganda manipulations that they employ against the Israeli public.

Countering suicide attacks, both in Israel and in the rest of the world over the years, has taught us that suicide terrorism is not a winning strategy, and must not be treated as such; we must not give its perpetrators a decisive capability which they don’t actually have.

Yoram Schweitzer is a Researcher at the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Israel. (c) The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, republished by Permission.