Wonder why so many terrorist assaults now are suicide attacks? Aside from the underlying psycho-social reasons, the tactical reason is: they work.
Terrorists are increasingly choosing to conduct suicide-type attacks because of their increased effectiveness, a terrorism expert said Wednesday.Posted by Alan at November 22, 2003 12:45 PMSpeaking before a conference held here by the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, RAND Vice President Bruce Hoffman listed several reasons why terrorists are increasingly turning to suicide attacks, including the ability of the attacker to adopt to changes in situation and to defenses around targets, as well as the fact that the perpetrator is no long available after the attack for possible capture and interrogation by authorities.
“In essence,” suicide bombers are “the ultimate smart bomb,” Hoffman said.
To demonstrate the increased effectiveness of suicide attacks, Hoffman said that suicide attacks conducted in Israel kill six times more than other types of attacks and injure 26 times more people. He said that the suicide component of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which killed more than 2,500 people, was “essential” to the attacks’ successes.