Suicide attacks or bombings have occurred throughout human history which is typically connecting an explosion and attackers enthusiastically accept their own death as a weapon. Modern suicide bombing began in 1981 in Lebanon during the Israeli occupation of Lebanon however, it achieved worldwide notoriety in 1983, first with an attack against the U.S. embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people and then with simultaneous car bombings of U.S. and French military barracks, also in Beirut, that killed 299 more (Kiras, 2019, p.2). Over the last 25 years, suicide attacks have become an alarming threat as a political tool that has been adopted by several organizations in Sri Lanka, Palestine and the occupied territories, Turkey, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and, in particular, by the Al-Qaeda-led insurgency in Iraq in its struggle against the US and its allies (Tosini, 2009, p.1). Any conflicts including suicide bombing have negatively affected education, health, economy, infrastructures, rule of law, and justice with a direct impact on social, cultural, and political life. These include reduced per capita income, food insecurity, increased exposure to violence by joining as a suicide weapon, and decreased overall well-being due to social isolation. Based on numerous researches, it is obvious that the global community has and will continue to experience common fear of suicide attracts which creates severe insecurity at the national, regional, and global levels. This study pursues to discuss the root causes of suicide bombings and how it has strangely impacted human security in several ways including severe insecurity of life, economy, food, health, education, justice and as well as related political, social, cultural, and security risks impacting peace and human rights.

In the twenty-first century, the effects of suicide bombings have brought reflective penalties for humanity. The annual report-2020 on suicide bombings conducted by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Israel shows that over 3,000 suicide bombings were committed in 45 countries over the past decade, in which over some 31,000 people were killed and some 57,000 were injured (INSS Insight, 2021, p4). According to the INSS report, the countries that suffered the most suicide bombings in the decade were Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. The report endures remarking that whether the decline in suicide bombings in recent years results from the diminishing returns from this activity, or from a combination of the circumstances of the organizations involved and improved counteraction capabilities on the part of the countries attacked will become clear in the following decade” (INSS, 2021, p.4).

This study has been conducted based on mixed methodology (qualitative and quantitative research) to display more comprehensive insights into the diverse impacts caused by the suicide bombing on humanity. Sources were mainly drawn from peer-reviewed journals, literature reviews, reports, NGO and government publications. Keyword searches were executed in academic databases, then sources were selected based on importance and input to the topic. Search terms included: suicide bombing, human security, and suicide weapon, psychological, political, and social aspects of the phenomena of suicide bombing, violence, access to law and justice during suicide attracts, and health, education, insecurity, and suicide bombing. Qualitative sources demonstrated the motives, ideology, socio-economic and mental health influences of the individual toward the decision of suicide bombers, while quantitative sources provided hard data on suicide bombings, effects of the suicide bombing on the victim’s region and global level.

The root cause, moral logic, and growth of suicide terrorism depend on several aspects, which is extremely challenging to identify the motives of perpetrators towards the decision of suicide bombers. Atran (2006) argued that those who believe suicide terrorism can be explained by a single political root cause, such as the presence of foreign military forces or the absence of democracy, ignore psychological motivations, including religious inspirations, which can trump rational self-interest to produce horrific or heroic behavior in ordinary people (p.144).

There is no doubt that political uncertainties and absenteeism of rule of law/democracy create a massive logical/metaphysical influence for a specific group/believer to become suicide extremist, however, there are also numerous internal factors including psychological/mental circumstances, educational/family upbringings, religious/cultural inspirations as the root causes to performance insensitive activities as a suicide bomber. In general, most of the perpetrators willingly act as suicide weapons based on their life perspectives/vision on the other hand, sometimes attackers are indoctrinated/ brainwashed, or the financial incentive for family plays a role or a minor conducts a suicide attack unwillingly. Gupta and Mundra (2005) conducted a study on suicide bombing as a strategic weapon and they disclosed an empirical investigation report of Hamas and Islamic Jihad within Israel and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The persistence of this study was to empirically validate that contrary to popular belief, suicide attacks are prudently orchestrated, politically motivated actions, reflecting the committing group’s deliberate goals and purposes. They have chosen to examine attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad within its political margins and those directed by the Palestinian Authorities (PA), covering the thirteen-year span from 1991to 2003. This study has two primary goals: first, they empirically test the three sets of overlapping hypotheses outlined above: (a) suicide bombing as a ‘‘spoiler’’ for the peace process, (b) a reaction to Israeli provocation, and (c) an outcome of competition and cooperation among the major dissident Palestinian groups. Second, having developed a behavioral model, they seek reasons for the apparent preference for these groups for choosing suicide attacks over other forms of violent protest (Gupta & Mundra, 2005, p.575).

This study was conducted with an estimate of the relevant persistent through explanatory questions by using a Quasi-Maximum Likelihood Ratio and then checked their robustness by re-estimating the model with the help of a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) as an interrelated system. Consequently, the first group of studies examined the motivations of individual participants to engage in suicide attacks, while the second set of studies analyzed the attacks from the perspective of a group. Gupta and Mundra (2005) mentioned that based on their group-level analysis, they were not able to comment on the rationality of the individual participants, however, the ability of their empirical model in explaining the large variance of the revealed preferences of the two groups firmly establishes that the campaign of suicide bombings is an integral part of a calculated strategic choice by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In fact, the choice of suicide bombings, which does not aim at a military victory but takes aim at sowing the greatest amount of mistrust among Jews and Palestinians, appears to be ‘‘rational’’ to many in the Palestinian community (p.590). The results indicate that the two groups deliberately use suicide bombings as strategic weapons within the larger Israeli-Palestinian political milieu. This study emphasizes the need to develop appropriate analytical capabilities to distinguish among terrorist groups and their motivations, ideologies, and tactics.

In the context of the relationship between suicide bombers’ characteristics and their performance in the suicide bombing attacks, a quantitative study was conducted by Benmelech and Berrebi (2007), revealed that the suicide bomber’s age and education and the importance of the target are strongly correlated; older and more-educated suicide bombers are assigned to attack more important targets (p.236). In this study, the authors stretched evidence-based on a unique database constructed from reports of the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) containing detailed information on all suicide attacks (biographies of suicide bombers, the targets they attacked, and the number of people that they killed and injured) by Palestinians against Israeli targets in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip between September 2000 and August 2005. They excluded suicide attacks that were launched by non-Palestinians or in which they could not identify the target. In this study, they found a total of 135 suicide bombing attacks carried out by 148 suicide bombers. Their sample represents 89 percent of the total number of suicide attacks between September 2000 and August 2005, 88 percent of the suicide bombers, and 98 percent of the Israelis who were killed in suicide attacks (p.225). The authors enhanced the biographical data with information from the websites of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Their sample includes 148 (eight female and 140 male) suicide bombers with their names, membership in a terror organization, age, city of residence, marital status, and whether they had an academic degree or were enrolled in a higher education institution. The youngest suicide bomber was 12 years old, and the oldest was 48. By this measure, 18 percent of the suicide bombers went beyond high school education, compared with only 8 percent in the Palestinian population as a whole (p.227).

To ponder the connections between the human capital of suicide bombers and the outcomes of their attacks, Benmelech and Berrebi (2007) considered the top five stand-alone suicide bombers (the average age is 25.8 years) in their dataset based on the number of people killed in their attacks. Based on the biography, three of the top five suicide bombers had academic degrees (two were masters’ candidates and one had a degree in law), while only 17.0 percent of the suicide bombers in the rest of the sample had or were pursuing academic degrees. The top-five suicide bombers killed on average 22.8 people, compared with a rest-of-the-sample mean of 3.0, and injured on average 88 people, compared with a mean of 22.4 in the rest of the sample (p.229). In the conclusion of this study, Benmelech and Berrebi (2007) revealed that “these differences in age, education, death, and injury between the means for the top five suicide bombers and the means for the rest of the sample are all highly statistically significant (p.229).” This study evidence suggests that the best-performing suicide bombers tend to be older and more educated and are also more likely to attack targets in major cities and hence Palestinian terror organizations assign older suicide bombers to targets in larger cities and less-educated suicide bombers to military targets (p.232).

While suicide attracts tragedy is bearing reactions around the world, victim regions/countries are in a most problematic situation to recoup after severe internal and external insecurities as the impact of the attracts/occurrences. A study conducted by Santifort-Jordan and Sandler (2014), the first venue-based empirical investigation of the number and lethality of suicide terrorist attacks on a global scale where data were distinguished between domestic and transnational suicide terrorist missions for 1998–2010 from 2448 suicide terrorist incidents, drawn from the three main terrorist event databases, i.e., International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events (ITERATE), the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), and RAND. Their findings indicate that economic and social variables are anticipated to affect the number of suicide attacks in countries at risk for suicide terrorism because these considerations exacerbate grievances held by organized terrorist groups (p.992). Their study also explored those democracies in suicide-terrorism-plagued nations had greater abilities than nondemocracies to defend and protect their citizens against suicide attacks (p.993). This study also shows that instability-ridden countries, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, accounted for 65% of the total number of suicide terrorist attacks, 45% of transnational suicide terrorist attacks, and 68% of domestic suicide attacks (p.995).

Benmelech and Berrebi (2007) in their study ‘Human Capital and the Productivity of Suicide Bombers’ revealed that suicide terrorism is rising around the world. From the onset of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000 through August 2005, 151 Palestinian suicide bombing attacks have been launched against Israeli targets, killing 515 people and injuring almost 3,500 more (p.1).” From 1987 to 2001, the Tamil Tigers launched 76 suicide bombing attacks in Sri Lanka and India, killing a total of 901 people, including two prominent national leaders: India’s former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and Sri Lanka’s President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993 (Pape, 2005). In Iraq, suicide bombers have killed thousands of people, mostly Iraqi civilians, since 2003.

The 9/11 attacks have a widespread impact on the United States and the global level. On September 11, 2001, a total of 2,977 people were killed in New York City (Twin Towers-2,753), Washington, DC (Pentagon-184), and outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania (into a field-40) by Al-Qaeda (Cable News Network, 2021, p.1). After 9/11 attracts, there were plentiful impacts on victims’ regions and global level including health, economy, cultural influences, and government policies toward terrorism. According to a CNN editorial research (2021), the economic impacts were huge as a total of US$247.3005 billion money were exhausted ($500,000 to plan and execute the attracts, $123 billion loss during the first 2-4 weeks after the World Trade Center towers collapsed in New York City, $60 billion costs of the WTC site damage, including damage to surrounding buildings, infrastructure, and subway facilities, $40 billion value of the emergency anti-terrorism package approved by the US Congress, $15 billion aid package passed by Congress to bail out the airlines, $9.3 billion Insurance claims arising from the attacks) and also the total cost of cleanup was $750 million (p.3). There was an immense impact on the health because toxic debris, including known carcinogens, were spread across Lower Manhattan due to the Twin Towers’ collapse. According to a report published by Guardian News and Media (2018), more than 43,000 people had been certified with a 9/11 related health condition and 182 members of the New York Fire Department alone have died due to such illnesses (p.4). 10,000 people diagnosed with cancer linked to 9/11, there were 9,375 members of the World Trade Center Health Program certified as having related cancer, and an additional 420 members who had cancer have died (p.2). The impact of 9/11 attracts has prolonged beyond geopolitics into universal society and culture including a major effect on the religious faith of people. Quay & Damico (2010) articulated that September 11, 2001, changed the landscape of American culture security lines at airport checkpoints, a national terror alert system, and years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan are visible changes to American life that can be directly traced to the events of that day. They also revealed that virtually all areas of popular culture those well-known, widely recognized books, TV shows, movies, songs, and visual images so central to twenty-first-century America were deeply affected by the 9/11 attracts (p.xi).

Though the suicide bombing has carried unforeseen situations internationally, victim communities/regions/countries have been strangely inflated because of the direct impact of the occurrences. The consequences of the suicide attack have worsened the overall economy, health, environment, and twisted challenging situation, seriously growing geopolitical, cultural, and human insecurity. Discriminations and hatred have been escalated sensationally in-between victims’ regions and terrorist communities/countries, which creates an extensive obstacle not only for involving regions/countries but also for the global community to live in a peaceful environment. In conclusion, I would recommend to policymakers/authorities at the local and global level to launch a human-centered universal education and peacebuilding approach to create an optimistic impression on attackers/perpetrators to build peaceful earth rather than become suicide bombers.

References

Atran, S. (2006). The moral logic and growth of suicide terrorism. Washington Quarterly, 29(2), 127-147. https://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/ijn_00000676/file/TWQ06spring_atran.pdf

Benmelech, E., & Berrebi, C. (2007). Human capital and the productivity of suicide bombers. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21(3), 223-238. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.21.3.223

Braun, R., & Genkin, M. (2014). Cultural resonance and the diffusion of suicide bombings: The role of collectivism. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 58(7), 1258-1284. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002713498707

Cable News Network (2021, September 3). September 11 terror attacks fast facts. https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/27/us/september-11-anniversary-fast-facts/index.html

Gill, P. (2007). A multi-dimensional approach to suicide bombing. International Journal of Conflict and Violence (IJCV), 1(2), 142-159. https://doi.org/10.4119/ijcv-2750

Gupta, D. K., & Mundra, K. (2005). Suicide bombing as a strategic weapon: An empirical investigation of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Terrorism and Political Violence, 17(4), 573-598. https://dgupta.sdsu.edu/docs/articles/Terrorism_PolViolenceDec2005.pdf

Guardian News and Media (2018, September 11). September 11: Nearly 10,000 people affected by 'cesspool of cancer'. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/10/911-attack-ground-zero-manhattan-cancer

INSS Insight (2021, January 13) No. 1421 https://www.inss.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/no.-1421.pdf

Kiras, J. (2019, November 13). Suicide bombing. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/suicide-bombing

Quay, S. E., & Damico, A. M. (2010). September 11 in Popular Culture: A Guide.

Santifort-Jordan, C., & Sandler, T. (2014). An empirical study of suicide terrorism: A global analysis. Southern Economic Journal, 80(4), 981-1001. https://doi.org/10.4284/0038-4038-2013.114

Schweitzer, Y., Mendelboim, A. & Hendler-Bloom, A. (2011, January 11). Suicide bombings worldwide in 2020. INSS Insight, 1424. https://www.inss.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/no.-1424.pdf

Tosini, D. (2009). A sociological understanding of suicide attacks. Theory, Culture & Society, 26(4), 67–96. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0263276409104969