A global comparison of suicide and non-suicide terrorism

ABSTRACT

Suicide terrorism has become an increasingly popular attack strategy among terrorist organisations over the last 40 years. The number of empirical studies on suicide terrorism has increased, but further research is necessary to understand the strategies of terrorist organisations that engage in suicide terrorism. Using the Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) theory as the framework, this study examines whether suicide terrorism differs by region, attack type, target type, weapon type, and type of terrorist organisation from non-suicide terrorism in global terrorist attacks that occurred between 1981 and 2017. Bivariate and multivariate analyses show that relative to non-suicide terrorism, suicide terrorism is more likely to occur in the Middle East and Africa, involve bombing/explosion as attack type, explosives/incendiary devices as weaponry, target security forces, and be committed by religious-based terrorist organisations. The results of this research indicate that situational terrorism prevention approach needs to be revised to consider the role of ideology in terrorist attack strategy since the ideology of a terrorist organisation plays a significant role in suicide terrorism. The findings of the research and its policy implications are discussed, and further research is warranted to expand the base of knowledge about suicide terrorism.

KEYWORDS:

• Suicide terrorism
• attack type
• target type
• weapon type
• type of terrorist organisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The original categories of for region were as follows: 1 = North America, 2 = Central America and the Caribbean, 3 = South America, 4 = East Asia, 5 = Southeast Asia, 6 = South Asia, 7 = Central Asia, 8 = Western Europe, 9 = Eastern Europe, 10 = Middle East and North Africa, 11 = Sub-Saharan Africa, 12 = Australasia and Oceania.

2 The original categories of attack types are as follows: 1 = Assassination, 2 = Armed Assault, 3 = Bombing/Explosion, 4 = Hijacking, 5 = Hostage Taking [barricade incident], 6 = Hostage Taking [kidnapping], 7 = Facility/Infrastructure, 8 = Unarmed Assault, 9 = Unknown.

3 The original 13 categories of weapon type are as follows: 1 = Biological, 2 = Chemical, 3 = Radiological, 4 = Nuclear, 5 = Firearms, 6 = Explosives, 7 = Fake Weapons, 8 = Incendiary, 9 = Melee, 10 = Vehicle, 11 = Sabotage Equipment, 12 = Other, 13 = Unknown.

4 The original 22 categories of target/victim type are as follows: 1 = Business, 2 = Government (General), 3 = Police, 4 = Military, 5 = Abortion Related, 6 = Airports and Aircrafts, 7 = Government (Diplomatic), 8 = Educational Institution, 9 = Food or Water Supply, 10 = Journalists and Media, 11 = Maritime (includes ports and maritime facilities), 12 = NGO, 13 = Other, 14 = Private Citizens and Property, 15 = Religious Figures and Institutions, 16 = Telecommunication, 17 = Terrorists/Non-State Militias, 18 = Tourists, 19 = Transportation (Other Than Aviation), 20 = Unknown, 21 = Utilities, 22 = Violent Political Parties.

5 We used the type of terrorist organisation instead of the ‘perpetrator group’ because we classified the organisations based on their ideological affiliations.