Suicide Terrorism: A Trope of Our Time

Abstract

The suicide attacks in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo in April 2019 with more than 250 dead and 500 wounded showed for the umpteenth time that suicide terrorism remains one of the most publicly present, yet still least understood, global phenomena of our time. Although partly removed from Western public debate after a period of relative quiet, the return of so-called Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in May 2019 to public visibility with the promise of revenge and further suicide attacks could bring the issue back to the fore. In order to be prepared, a better understanding of the underlying motives and backgrounds is needed. The author offers his provocative analysis.

NOTES

Notes

1 The author thanks Katja Siepmann, MA, for providing the backbone of large parts of this text, and for her invaluable contribution to and work on the article. Katja didn’t want to be the co-author of this text for personal reasons and by her own choice.

2 Original (in German): „Der Geist einer Sprache offenbart sich am deutlichsten in ihren unübersetzbaren Worten.”