Brothers in Arms: The Phenomenon of Complex Suicide Attacks

ABSTRACT

Globally, the spread and use of suicide bombing attacks have become a regular occurrence. Suicide terrorism literature focuses primarily on conventional suicide bombing attacks. However, a growing trend has been observed in the adoption of complex suicide attacks. Using Al-Shabaab as a case study, this paper investigates the phenomenon of complex suicide attacks. We explore the tactical differences of complex suicide attacks vis-à-vis simple attacks in terms of its target goal, discriminative lethality, and delivery method. The paper relies on a uniquely constructed dataset of the group’s suicide operations, employing a variety of data collection techniques. The findings reveal that, inter alia, complex suicide attacks reduce civilian casualties compared to simple suicide attacks. Contrary to the group’s intent and official guidelines to target foreign entities; findings illustrate that domestic targets bear the brunt of most complex suicide attacks. These findings have the potential to contribute to counter-terrorism strategies and be adopted by concerned states in order to effectively protect significant loss of lives and destruction of property resulting from suicide terrorism.

KEYWORDS:

• Suicide terrorism
• Al-Shabaab
• complex attacks
• simple attacks
• violent extremist organizations

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Dr Jason Hartley for comments and suggestions in response to draft versions of this paper, and thank two anonymous reviewers for numerous helpful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mohammed Ibrahim Shire

Dr Mohammed Ibrahim Shire is a Lecturer at the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies at University of Portsmouth. His research interests encompass security, risk, resilience, terrorism and counter-terrorism.

Abdi Hersi

Dr Abdi Hersi is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research. He is the author of the book Conceptualization of Integration: An Australian Muslim-Counter Narrative (2018). His research interests include security studies, sociology of religion, migrant integration and social cohesion. In addition to his academic work, Dr Hersi has had a long and distinguished career in the Australian Public Service, and over a period of more than ten years worked across the spectrum of Australia’s Federal Department of Immigration and Border Protection in different capacities, including managerial roles.