Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

648 • SUICIDE TERRORISMwent awry when the bomb prematurely detonated, leaving the wouldbebomber alive, so clearly Hezbollah has not completely renouncedthe use of this tactic.Intihari attacks are not a monopoly of Shi’ite militias. The SyrianSocial Nationalist Party has developed and deployed its own corpsof intiharioun, while in 1987 the Popular Front for the Liberationof Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) deployed intiharihang-glider attacks against Israeli forces in Lebanon and settlementsin Galilee. The Mujahideen-i Khalq have also used intiharioun tokill government officials and proregime clergymen in Iran. The LiberationTigers of Tamil Eelam have made extensive use of suicidebombers, one of whom succeeded in assassinating former Indianprime minister Rajiv Gandhi in Tamil Nadu State on 21 May 1991.On 4 October 1994 Hamas made its first use of suicide terrorismwith a car-bomb attack on a group of Israeli soldiers and in April 1994began to use this tactic against civilian targets as well. According tointerviews of Professor Joseph Ginat with would-be Hamas suicidebombers who failed to accomplish their missions, the suicide bomberis usually an ill-educated but pious Muslim male burdened with asense of personal sin due to use of alcohol or illicit sexual conductwho believes he cannot atone for his failings through the usual prescribedprayers, fasting, or pilgrimage. The Hamas sheikh, or Muslimspiritual leader, offers him the suicide mission as an opportunity forplenary absolution of his personal sins through his self-sacrifice. Inaddition, the intending intihari is told that the personal sins of allmembers of his extended family will also be atoned for through hisact of self-sacrifice. Part of this preparation would involve his beingled through a Muslim cemetery by his spiritual guide, who wouldtell him that he, the bomber, no longer faced the uncertainties associatedwith death and dying since he would be instantly transported toparadise at the moment of his martyrdom and would bear neither theordinary pains and fear of dying nor be subject to the torments of thebarzakh, the transitional purgatory whose pains even pious Muslimsmust endure but that is waived in the case of martyrs. ProfessorGinat’s interviews with surviving suicide bombers are shown in thedocumentary films Shaheed and Diary of a Terrorist.The most serious suicide attacks to date have been the WorldTrade Center and Pentagon Attacks of September 11, 2001, inwhich hijackers affiliated with the al Qa’eda terrorist network of