Cutting the Fuse
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Cutting the Fuse

The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It

Robert A. Pape, James K. Feldman

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eBook - ePub

Cutting the Fuse

The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It

Robert A. Pape, James K. Feldman

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About This Book

Cutting the Fuse offers a wealth of new knowledge about the origins of suicide terrorism and strategies to stop it. Robert A. Pape and James K. Feldman have examined every suicide terrorist attack worldwide from 1980 to 2009, and the insights they have gleaned from that data fundamentally challenge how we understand the root causes of terrorist campaigns today—and reveal why the War on Terror has been ultimately counterproductive. Through a close analysis of suicide campaigns by Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Israel, Chechnya, and Sri Lanka, the authors provide powerful new evidence that, contrary to popular and dangerously mistaken belief, only a tiny minority of these attacks are motivated solely by religion. Instead, the root cause is foreign military occupation, which triggers secular and religious people alike to carry out suicide attacks. Cutting the Fuse calls for new, effective solutions that America and its allies can sustain for decades, relying less on ground troops in Muslim countries and more on offshore, over-the-horizon military forces along with political and economic strategies that empower local communities to stop terrorists in their midst.

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PART I

Analytic Overview

CHAPTER ONE

Why Occupation Ignites Suicide Terrorism

Almost every week, suicide bombers attack—either a military convoy or market, either in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, or other targets in other countries around the world. We know the horror. We know not to be surprised, even though attacks in certain countries can come after long periods of relative calm. But, do we understand what would drive seemingly ordinary people to strap explosives to their bodies and deliberately kill themselves on a mission to kill others?
Recently, we have made strides in understanding suicide terrorism. Years ago, one could listen to seemingly endless journalistic reports asking, why do only Muslims carry out suicide attacks? Such news stories dovetailed with the popular notion that suicide terrorism is a product of religious extremism where a poor, desperate (Islamic fundamentalist) soul seeks to escape the troubles of this world for a quick trip to paradise.
To make progress on understanding the root cause, it is important to clarify what we wish to explain. What matters most is not why one person carries out one suicide attack, but why many people would carry out a campaign of suicide attacks, since it is the possibility of more attacks to come that presents the greatest threat to our future. Until recently we have not had the benefit of comprehensive data on the global patterns of suicide attacks and so have had little clarity about the real world circumstances under which a suicide terrorist campaign is, or is not, carried out—the critical information necessary to confirm the general causes of the phenomenon.
Today, we know much more. Much challenges the conventional wisdom. Some is a bit disconcerting. Most important, our new knowledge rests on more thorough information, particularly the availability of the first complete data set on suicide terrorist attacks around the world from 1980 to 2009. When this is combined with the increasingly available martyr videos—the last video will testimonials of suicide attackers1—the wealth of new information about both the general circumstances and individual motives of suicide attackers paints a powerful picture of the root cause of the threat we face.
To bring this new picture into focus, it is helpful to analyze the global patterns of suicide attacks around the world in two stages. The first is the pattern of attacks from 1980 to 2003, involving nearly 350 suicide attacks and over 500 individuals who actually killed themselves. The second is the pattern from 2004 to 2009, when the number of suicide attacks around the world escalated sharply and became more focused against America, with over 1,800 attacks, more than five times the number in the previous 24 years combined. This division allows us to account for whether the tremendous rise of anti-American suicide terrorism in recent years in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere is due to general causes or special circumstances.
The Root Cause of Suicide Terrorism
Examination of the universe of suicide terrorist around the world from 1980 to 2003 shows that the principal cause of suicide terrorism is resistance to foreign occupation, not Islamic fundamentalism. Even when religion matters, moreover, it functions mainly as a recruiting tool in the context of national resistance.
For the purpose of understanding suicide terrorism, it is imperative to view occupation from the perspective of the resistance movement (e.g., terrorists) because it is the behavior of the local actors, not the foreign power, that determines whether suicide terrorism occurs. Whether the foreign power regards itself as a “stabilizing" ally rather than an “occupier" is not relevant.
“Occupation” means the exertion of political control over territory by an outside group. The critical requirement is that the occupying power's political control must depend on employing coercive assets—whether troops, police, or other security forces—that are controlled from outside the occupied territory, an issue often salient when foreign military forces cause collateral damage to local civilians but are not held accountable in local courts for their actions. The number of troops actually stationed in the occupied territory may or may not be large, so long as enough are available, if necessary, to suppress any effort at independence. The best test is the political decisiveness of political control: if the local government requires the power of foreign “stabilizing" troops or police in order to maintain order—or if large segments of the local community believes this is the case—then, from the perspective of the resistance, these foreign troops are occupying forces that are preventing a change of government that would otherwise occur. From the perspective of a resistance movement, a “threat of occupation" is imminent when a foreign military power stations troops in territory immediately adjacent to another country and has the strength to invade the neighboring territory, either to impose political control on a significant region for its own interests or to suppress local opposition to the current government.
Among members of the local community, foreign occupation can create fear that they would lose the ability to perpetuate their political, social, economic, and religious institutions, leading some members to make extreme sacrifices to prevent the loss of their community's way of life. Accordingly, factors that influence the intensity of the local community's fear of the occupation—such as number of foreign troops, degree of foreign influence over local institutions, and harm to the local population caused by the presence of foreign troops—are likely to impact the ebb and flow of self-sacrifice to protect the community.
In some cases, an outside power may exert military or economic pressure on a local government that is sufficient to compel the local government to alter key foreign policies, but not to control the domestic institutions of the country. This case is best termed an “indirect occupation,” meaning large segments of a local community believe their government's foreign policy goals are under the control of an outside group. In a traditional alliance, member countries pursue mutual goals of interest independently of coercion by other members. For instance, Great Britain and the United States both viewed Germany as a military threat in World War II and neither coerced the other to make this calculation. By contrast, in indirect occupation, the indirectly occupied country gives a higher priority to the goals of the indirect occupier than its national interest alone would warrant, typically as a result of military or economic pressure. For example, India contributed large numbers of troops to the fight against Italy in World War II, an army third in size to the British and American armies, and did so because India was under indirect occupation by Great Britain2.
From 1980 to 2003, the connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism is weaker than many might have thought. Although there are prominent Islamic suicide terrorists—most particularly from Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza—the world leader during this period was not an Islamic group. It was the Hindu, avowedly antireligious Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka, whose 157 suicide terrorists totaled more than Hamas and all other Palestinian suicide groups combined. Of the Palestinian suicide terrorists, more than a third were from secular groups, such as the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Of the suicide terrorists associated with Hezbollah in Lebanon during the 1980s, only 21% were Islamic fundamentalists while 71 % were communists and socialists; 8% were Christians. In Turkey, 100% of the PKK's suicide attackers were secular. Overall, Islamic fundamentalism cannot account for over half of the known affiliations of the 524 total suicide terrorists from 1980 to 2003—184 were from Islamic fundamentalist groups (35% comprising 73 Al Qaeda, 5 Lebanese, 5 Kashmiri Rebels, 69 Hamas, 34 Palestinian Islamic Jihad) and 236 from secular groups (45% comprising 157 Tamil Tigers, 42 Al-Aqsa, 22 Lebanese, 15 PKK), while 12 (21%) had unknown ideological affiliations. Even if we assume every unknown was an Islamic fundamentalist, at most 56% of all suicide terrorists worldwide would count as Islamic fundamentalists.
By contrast, foreign occupation accounted for nearly all suicide terrorism. The vast majority of suicide terrorist attacks (95%) from 1980 to 2003 occurred as part of coherent and organized campaigns designed to compel democratic societies to abandon the occupation or political control of territory the terrorists view as their national homeland. From Lebanon to Israel to Sri Lanka to Kashmir to Chechnya, every suicide terrorist campaign has been waged as part of a national liberation strategy against a democracy with military forces stationed on territory the terrorists value.
Al Qaeda fits the pattern. Osama bin Laden's principal objective has long been the expulsion of American troops from the Persian Gulf. From 1995 to 2003, there were 71 suicide terrorists who actually killed themselves on a mission for Al Qaeda. Of these, 44, or 62%, came from Saudi Arabia or other Muslim countries with thousands of American combat troops stationed on their soil, and 13, or 18%, came from the Muslim countries whose regimes are the most supported by the United States. It is important to recall that 1990 was a benchmark year in America's military deployment to the Persian Gulf. Before this point, the United States had only tiny numbers of troops stationed in Muslim countries (mostly guards protecting embassies), but no tank, armor, or tactical aircraft combat units since World War II. The United States deployed large numbers of combat forces to the region starting in August 1990 to deal with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and has kept tens of thousands of combat forces there every year since; Al Qaeda's attacks began in 1995. Foreign occupation also accounts for the motives of individual suicide terrorists from 1980 to 2003. Many suicide terrorists are acting on the basis of altruistic motives for their communities, not on the purely personal motives that are typical of almost all other suicides. Many individual suicide attackers see themselves as powerfully related to the presence of foreign combat forces on territory the terrorists prize. For instance, the martyr videos made by the 9/11 hijackers strongly emphasize the motive of ending foreign occupation of the Arabian Peninsula. Here are three of the Saudi hijackers:
ABU AL-JARAAH AL-GHAMIDI: What is happening in Muslim countries today? Blatant occupation about which there is no doubt
. There is no duty more obligatory after faith than to repel him.
ABU MUS’AB WALID AL-SHEHRI: The occupation and deterioration in the land of the Two Sanctuaries is a plot by the Jew and Nazarenes, foremost among them America, may Allah destroy it, which has been among the chief causes of every misfortune suffered by Islam and the Muslims. Thus, repelling the Americans occupying the land of the Two Sanctuaries
is the most obligatory of obligations
HAMZA AL-GHAMDI: And I say to America: if it wants its armies and people to be safe, then it must withdraw all of its forces from the Muslim lands and depart from all our countries. If not, then let it await the men, prepare its coffins and dig graves for its citizens.
To be sure, some foreign occupations are more likely to result in suicide terrorism than others. Especially when the predominate religion in the occupier's society is different from the prevailing religion in the occupied society, this religious difference enables terrorist leaders to more easily portray the conflict in zero-sum terms, demonize the enemy, and legitimate martyrdom. Although the religions vary, the suicide terrorist campaigns by the Lebanese against the United States, France, and Israel, Palestinians against Israel, Sikhs against India, and Tamils against Sri Lanka, and Al Qaeda against the United States all contain a religious difference, and this contributed to community support for martyrdom in these cases. When a foreign occupation with a religious difference leads to rebellion, suicide terrorism often results as a weapon of last resort once more conventional strategies of resistance fail, a pattern observed in nearly all disputes that escalated to suicide terrorism. However, when foreign occupation does not engender local rebellion—as in the case of the U.S. occupation of Japan and South Korea during the Cold War, where local resistance to American military presence was offset by greater concern with the Soviet threat—suicide terrorism rarely occurs.
Further, suicide terrorism started rising around the world during the period 1980 to 2001 in part because terrorists have learned that it can work. From America and France's complete military exit from Lebanon in the 1980s to Israeli partial military withdrawals from the West Bank and Gaza in 1994 and 1995 to Sri Lanka's initial willingness to negotiate autonomy conditions with the Tamil Tigers in 1994 and 2001, suicide terrorism achieved important political concessions, especially for groups with so few other options.
In general, suicide terrorism has important, but limited coercive power—it might bring concessions on issues that are only modestly important for target states, but has little effectiveness in changing their core goals. Of course, issues that are only moderately important for target states may be of central importance to suicide terrorist groups or communities that support them.
Suicide terrorism makes punishment more effective than in traditional military campaigns. Targets of suicide terrorism remain willing to countenance high costs for important goals, but administrative, economic, or military adjustments that will prevent suicide attack are harder to make, while suicide attackers themselves are unlikely to be deterred by the threat of retaliation. Accordingly, suicide attack is likely to present a threat of continuing limited civilian punishment that the target government cannot completely eliminate, and the upper bound on what punishment via suicide attacks can gain for coercers is recognizably higher in suicidal terrorist campaigns than in conventional military coercion in international disputes3.
This is because suicide terrorism makes the target state's adjustment to reduce damage more difficult than for states faced with military coercion or economic sanctions because the when and where are unpredictable. However, it does not affect the target state's interests in the issues at stake. As a result, suicide terrorism can coerce states to abandon limited or modest goals, for example, by withdrawing from territory of low strategic importance, as in America's withdrawal from Lebanon in 1984, or, as in Israel's case in 1994 and 1995, by a temporary and partial withdrawal from a more important area. However, suicide terrorism is unlikely to cause targets to abandon goals central to their wealth or security, for example, by allowing a loss of territory that would weaken the economic prospects of the target state or strengthen its rivals.
Data on suicide terrorism since 2004 reinforces this conclusion. While suicide terrorism has achieved modest or very limited goals, it has so far failed to compel target democracies to abandon goals central to wealth, security, or integrity of core territory. When Israel withdrew from Gaza and parts of the West Bank in 2005, it abandoned territory of marginal value to the security of some Israelis, while actually increasing the security of the vast majority of the Jewish settlers by retaining the major settlements in East Jerusalem, Ariel, and elsewhere and by building a triple fence “wall" to protect them. Although Israel's concessions are modest, they almost surely would not have occurred without the large-scale suicide terrorism from 2000 to 2004, as many Israelis recognize. For example, on July 18, 2005, Haaretz's Danny Rubinstein wrote “Sharon, who never once mentioned or alluded to the need to withdraw from Gaza before, needed suicide bombers, rockets, and mortars to persuade h...

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