Customer Reviews

Suicide Terrorism

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The purpose of this book is to explore suicide terrorism in the latter part of the 20th century and the early 21st century. In the 1980s, Hezbollah used this tactic in Lebanon--with spectacular results.

As the Preface remarks (page xv): "Suicide bombing is the signature tactic of the fourth or 'religious wave' of modern terrorism, a wave that began with the Iranian Revolution of 1979."

The chapters in this edited volume deal with a variety of key issues:

1. The nature of suicide terrorism;
2. Motivations for suicide terrorism;
3. Islam and Al Qaeda;
4. Osama bin Laden.

The Introduction does a nice job of laying out what is at stake in this volume. It concludes by noting that (page 11): "In summary, the characteristics of suicide attacks which have been discussed point to the fact that, in contrast to common belief, suicide attacks are varied and change from region to region and during different time periods."

A good edited volume that gets one to thinking about the issues involved with suicide terrorism.

Regardless of which side you take in any particular conflict, this book offers an incredibly fair assessment of the ongoing and growing threat of suicide terror. The book provides excellent resources for the novice reader as well as for experts in the field. The data that the author provides is clean and reliable which he has drawn from a variety of sources and from many languages. It is a must read for anyone interested in terrorism and its underlying causes.

Although the topic of suicide attacks has the peculiarity of being a changing and evolutionary tactic that varies from region to region, at least for me who has read the majority of the books about it, this one I think is elegantly written, the author has a profound interest in analyses that really shows you a thorough understanding case by case beyond conventional wisdom. Well informed and explain.