Women's Place in the Andes: Engaging Decolonial Feminist Anthropology. Florence E. Babb. Oakland: University of California Press, 2018. 298 pp

Perspectives on Terrorism, 2021

Embracing the tactic of suicide bombings first in 2003, the Taliban in Afghanistan quickly emerged as the leading terrorist group in the world that has claimed responsibility for such bombings. Over a period of more than 10 years, the group has indiscriminately carried out hundreds of suicide bombings across the country. How have the Taliban managed to operationalize one of the most notorious bombing tactics against all the existing social and cultural odds of Afghan society? To answer this question, this study, by applying qualitative thematic analysis, examined the contents of the Taliban's written and audiovisual materials on suicide bombings. Two dominant narratives, namely "Istish-haadi" [seeking martyrdom] and "love to death, " that are at the core of the Taliban's produced literature on suicide bombings, have supplied the group with dispensable human bombs. These bombers, the study concludes, are "dying to live".

2015

Suicide‐attacks are one of the most important aspects of modern conflicts. According to Tosini between December 1981 (date of the first suicide‐attack) and December 2010 date of the end of the scholar’s research there have been 2.713 suicide‐attacks worldwide, which have caused about 28.000 deaths. Afghanistan and Iraq play the biggest role: between March 2003 and May 2010 there have been 1321 attacks of this kind in Iraq which have caused more than 13.000 deaths. Since 1981 Afghanistan and Iraq have been reaching 68% of all suicide‐bombings and 55% of all casualties together. These figures show how big an impact the suicide tactics had during the Iraq war, in addition suicide tactics continues to have a main role in Islamic State warfare: for example in January 2015 alone we can count 35 suicide‐attacks in Iraq. Moreover, suicide‐attacks played an important role in other conflicts such as the ones in Lebanon, Israel, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Turkey, Afghanistan, and worldwide attacks ca...

Suicide‐attacks are one of the most important aspects of modern conflicts. According to Tosini between December 1981 (date of the first suicide‐attack) and December 2010 date of the end of the scholar’s research there have been 2.713 suicide‐attacks worldwide, which have caused about 28.000 deaths. Afghanistan and Iraq play the biggest role: between March 2003 and May 2010 there have been 1321 attacks of this kind in Iraq which have caused more than 13.000 deaths. Since 1981 Afghanistan and Iraq have been reaching 68% of all suicide‐bombings and 55% of all casualties together. These figures show how big an impact the suicide tactics had during the Iraq war, in addition suicide tactics continues to have a main role in Islamic State warfare: for example in January 2015 alone we can count 35 suicide‐attacks in Iraq. Moreover, suicide‐attacks played an important role in other conflicts such as the ones in Lebanon, Israel, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Turkey, Afghanistan, and worldwide attacks can be linked to the global organization of al‐Qaeda. Objectives, political and war situations are very different in these countries, thus the various features of suicide bombings make finding a single explanation for this phenomenon.

Vol 75 : No 2 : Summer 2008 395 much of the scholarly discourse on "suicide terrorism" focuses on the political strategies of these acts of violence and fails to consider their cultural dimensions, which are key to understanding how these acts gain popular support and become potential individual motivations. These forms of violence are conceived in cultural forms related to local knowledge and historical memory that are poorly understood by

Otoritas: Jurnal Ilmu Pemerintahan, 2021

This paper provided a new framework i.e., fifth-generation literature on suicide bombings. The latter have always been a central debate/value in warfare; however, they have taken a centre stage in asymmetric warfare. The lethality and commitment to the cause makes a suicide attacker a real danger. The Iraqi episode of Al-Qaeda used suicide bombings as a military operation, and it transferred the expertise to Taliban to fight against the U.S-led Allied Forces in Afghanistan. From there the same tactics proliferated to Pakistani Taliban who used it as a military operation against the security and civil establishments of Islamabad. Apart from the Pashtunwali Code and the strict adherence to the Deobandi School of thought, the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and Pakistan readily accepted to recruit and train suicide attackers and employed suicide bombings as a military operation. This analytical and explanatory study generally banked on secondary data, normally gathered from the academic sources; however, primary data was also used, and an interview of an anonymous security official was conducted as well. This paper is a concentrated effort to probe and investigate the advent of suicide bombings in Afghanistan and Pakistan and to examine that how and why the Pashtuns used it as a military operation to achieve their desired objectives. The article found that the selection and indoctrination of a suicide bomber involves almost eight stages.

Journal of International Affairs & Politics - Vol.14, 2020

After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the militants in the country adopted suicide bombing tactics and the war-torn country faced a new threat in the form of suicide terrorism. The main purpose of this research is to review the existing literature on the motives of suicide attackers, mostly from political science perspective. For many scholars and state actors, it is hard to understand the acts of terrorists especially of suicide terrorists. Thus, suicide terrorism and act of blowing oneself was often conceived as "irrational" but many political scientists argue otherwise. Although, most academics agree that there is no single motive for terrorists to conduct suicide attacks, great number of previous researches on suicide terrorism in Afghanistan suggests that religion has played a significant role in promoting suicide bombings in the country. However, this paper argues that militants in Afghanistan conduct suicide attacks mainly for strategic reasons and it is used as a military tactic to challenge well-resourced opponents. In addition to addressing the role of strategic reasons, this article also analyzes other factors including religious, altruistic, economic motivations as well as military and political advantages instigating militants to become suicide bombers.

Journal of Religion and Violence, 2019

Caravan of Martyrs: Sacrifice and Suicide Bombing in Afghanistan. David B. Edwards. University of California Press, 2017. 272 pp. Hardcover $29.95 / ISBN: 978-0-520-294790.