U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Human Body as a Terrorist Weapon: Hunger Strikes and Suicide Bombers

NCJ Number
219724
Journal
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism Volume: 30 Issue: 6 Dated: June 2007 Pages: 459-492
Author(s)
James Dingley; Marcello Mollica
Date Published
June 2007
Length
34 pages
Annotation
This paper describes the tactics used by terrorist groups to recruit individuals who will become suicide bombers or engage in hunger strikes to the death in order to advance the cause of the terrorist group.
Abstract
The typical secular Western mind, which is conditioned to make decisions based on rational material calculations, finds it difficult to understand such self-sacrificing beliefs and behavior. It is essential that those who plan and design counterterrorist tactics understand the communal values and belief systems that energize and mold the terrorist behaviors. Fighting terrorism and its extremes of destructive behaviors involves not just targeting individual actors, but more importantly the communities whose values and beliefs continue to produce and motivate those willing to sacrifice their lives for those beliefs. In order to recruit individuals who will sacrifice their lives in a terrorist cause, support communities are cultivated to value self-sacrifice at emotional and symbolic levels. Recruits for self-sacrifice from such communities regard themselves as acting on behalf of a community of supporters who place great value on self-sacrifice and members of their community who engage in it. The cultivation of the value of self-sacrifice uses the imagery and symbolism of traditional religion, implying a strong communal belief system and a spiritual impetus for terrorist acts. For the Northern Ireland hunger strikers, for example, their motivation is based in an appeal to a Catholic/nationalist community that views itself as standing for traditional religious beliefs under threat from a modern secular society. 140 notes