Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

SUICIDE TERRORISM • 647in fact non-Muslim groups in the Middle East have also used it, aswell as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Northern Ireland. Themotive for the suicide bomber need not be religious or ideologicalzeal: Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) suicide bombers wereoften motivated by personal shame and the desire to redeem one’shonor, while the typical IRA suicide bomber was an exposed informantwhose family was threatened with death unless he performedthe mission and who would face summary execution by the IRA inany case if he did not perform the mission.Suicide bombings have been associated mainly with MiddleEastern terrorism, both in the 1980s in Lebanon and as of 1994 inIsrael and the occupied territories, when Hamas and Islamic Jihadin Palestine adopted this tactic with great effect, leading the moresecular and nationalist group al Fatah to develop its own al AqsaMartyrs’ Brigade. The Arabic designation from the Arabic wordintihar, meaning “suicide,” for suicide volunteers is in the singularIntihari, and in the plural Intiharioun, terms used among Hezbollahmilitiamen for people willing to undertake suicide attacks, usuallyas drivers of vehicle bombs. The truck-bomb attacks on the U.S.embassy in Beirut on 18 April 1983 and against the U.S. Marineencampment at Beirut International Airport on 23 October 1983 bothinvolved intihari drivers, with credit for these attacks being claimedby Islamic Jihad, a nom de guerre for Hezbollah.Although intihari attacks have been rationalized as a form of Islamicmartyrdom, even Islamic clergymen supportive of Hezbollah,such as Muhammad Hussain Fadlullah, have pointed out that deliberatesuicide is contrary to Islamic law, whereas bona fide martyrdom,or ishtihad, involves death that is both unavoidable and unsought.Following the withdrawal of U.S. and French multinational units fromLebanon, Hezbollah apparently switched to kidnapping hostages asits preferred tactic for ridding Lebanon of Western influence and laterextensively used remotely detonated roadside bombs against IsraeliDefense Forces units in southern Lebanon rather than intihari volunteers.Following the release of Western hostages in December 1991,Hezbollah again resumed car-bomb attacks with the 17 March 1992bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the 18 July 1994attack on the Argentine-Israel Mutual Aid society, also in BuenosAires, which both involved suicide bombers. On 12 April 1996 therewas an attempted suicide bombing by Hezbollah in Jerusalem that