Social Psychology Of Suicide Terrorism Essay

A suicide attack is a form of terrorism, in which the attacker anticipates their death when harming their target. Suicide attacks have grown exponentially in numbers since its primary use in the 1980s, with attacks in the year 2016 totaling to 469 attacks, which resulted in 5,650 deaths (Schweitzer, et al. 2017). The rise has been attributed to social influence and poor conditions of the persons, but research and psychoanalytical studies tell a different story. In 1982, at the Israeli army’s Tyre Headquarters, a suicide bombing was carried out by the Islamic resistance group, Hezbollah. The AOAV, (Action on Armed Violence) attributes this attack as the commencement, and the rise, of modern suicide tactics (sec. 1). There have been many recorded suicide attacks occurring all over the world; some catastrophic examples include the attack on Pearl Harbor, where kamikazes attacked the naval base of the same name, and the September 11 attacks where the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda crashed planes into the United States’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The AOAV also states, in

Studies link to the conspicuous answer of these attacks as tools of war, a means to an end. In a study called ‘The Social Psychology of Suicide Terrorism,’ the author concurs with this, also adding how extremist groups link their attacks to their own purpose and growth (de la Cortez Ibáñez). Terrorist propaganda brings in patriotic people willing to sacrifice their lives to support their country. Although it might be hard to comprehend, in regards to the second World War they are very lucid. Kamikaze pilots were trained to crash into enemy warships, because the Japanese were outmatched in power, and desperate to turn the war in their favor (Smallwood, “How Were Kamikaze Pilots Chosen”). The article also takes a quote from the Japanese naval captain, Motoharu Okamura,