Terror's ultimate weapon: suicide bombings have become the tactic of choice for terrorists. Their toll--in terms of death and psychological impact--is devastating.

From Jerusalem to Jakarta and from Bali to Baghdad, the suicide bomber is clearly the weapon of choice for international terrorists. Terrorist groups now rely almost exclusively on this horrific tactic to carry out their attacks.

As devastating attacks on civilians in Israel and Iraq recently demonstrate, suicide bombings have become a grimly efficient terrorist industry. The practice is flourishing worldwide; bomb makers are in especially high demand.

Suicide bomb attacks were pioneered in southern Lebanon two decades ago by Hezbollah, a radical Islamic group whose name means "Party of God." These tactics were adopted as a routine tool by Hamas, a Palestinian terror group, and Al Qaeda--most notably in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. The suicide-bombing campaign started in Iraq last summer. Two particularly horrific attacks, a truck bomb at the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad on August 19 and a bombing at a mosque on August 29, left more than 100 people dead.

The terrorism industry requires just two raw materials--bombs and people. Of those, people are far easier to come by. In the militant corners of the Muslim world, signing up for such a mission infuses the volunteer with an urgent purpose and the promise of glory. It seems unlikely that the bombs will ever outnumber the people ready to deliver them.

EAGER BOMBERS

Ismail Abu Shanab, a Hamas leader who was killed by an Israeli missile in August, spoke to Jessica Stern, author of Terror in the Name of God, in 1999 about why so many people were eager to serve as suicide bombers. He said there was only one thing a person needs to qualify: "A moment of courage."

A person using a knife, Shanab explained, is usually "nervous." A gun takes training, and too much time. But a suicide Bomber only needs that moment of courage, which Shanab said was in abundant supply in Gaza. Young men and women who carried out such missions had usually seen what they viewed as "something terrible, some kind of atrocity," he said. "Islam says, 'an eye for an eye.' We believe in retaliation. When someone is killed in jihad, it is a joyful day."

His assessment led Stern to conclude that suicide bombers are a terrorist organization's most economically viable way to conduct its bloody business. "It's certainly cost-effective," Stern says, "both financially and in terms of the number of terrorist lives ultimately put at risk."

The Palestinians' suicide bombings--there have been more than 100 since the current intifada, an Arabic word meaning "uprising," began in 2000--have become so systemized that the infrastructure that supports the attacks, like the recruiters, the bomb laboratories, and the delivery systems, is typically not just accepted but embraced.

"The fact that they've been able to sustain the tactic suggests that this tactic is applauded in the community, and it reflects a society under considerable stress," says Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert with the Rand Corporation. "I think we'd all agree, and it's not just a Western view, that suicide bombing is abnormal. The fact that abnormal behavior is applauded reflects abnormal conditions. If normal conditions are restored, then normal behavior should return--at least they'd be less tolerant of abnormal behavior."

Similar abnormality was seen during World War II when Japanese kamikaze pilots volunteered to sacrifice themselves to strike against the United States.

PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS

In the 21st century, terrorists may well have embraced the suicide attack because of its devastating psychological effects. Without weapons of mass destruction, a single terrorist can create a disproportionate impact--whether the result is crumpling the road map to Mideast peace or undermining American efforts to win the peace in Iraq.

Twenty years ago in Lebanon, for example, Americans were stunned when suicide truck bombers killed 63 people at the U.S. embassy in Beirut in April, and 241 U.S. Marines--asleep in their barracks during a peacekeeping mission--in October. By early the next year, the Marines had left Lebanon.

"You can assimilate among the people, and then attack with an element of surprise that has an incredible and devastating shock value," explains Magnus Ranstorp, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

NO SIGNS OF PATHOLOGY

In the terrorism world, imitation is inevitable, and there is a widespread belief among terrorists that the suicide bombings are working. In the United States, the motives of the suicide bomber are often misunderstood.

"It is the general consenus that martyrs hate democracy, and are crazies--this is not true," says Scott Atran, a scientist in Paris and at the University of Michigan. "These people showed no sign of psychopathology. They were from middle- and upper-class families. Poverty is not a factor. The factor is diminishing expectations. No matter how rich or poor, if you have not achieved what you expected, you are more likely to back a radical policy."

In fact, the surge in suicide bombings may be fueled by a simpler motivation. A suicide attack is a way to be honored by your society, and for your family to be financially rewarded.

"In an instant," says Ranstorp, "you are propelled from being no one to someone who is glorified and lionized with poems, and you live on in this historical chain of heroic martyrs, being remembered and saluted far longer than if you had not undertaken this kind of operation."

The Jerusalem bus attack on August 19 was the first time a suicide bomber was an imam, or prayer leader. Raed Abdul Hamid Misk, 29, was from one of the largest mosques in Hebron, on the West Bank. As a married man, with two young children, he did not fit the profile of a suicide bomber, who is usually an unmarried man between the ages of 18 and 25.

He climbed aboard a bus crowded with families returning from the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site. Strapped to Iris chest was a 12-pound bomb, packed with ball bearings and nails. He must have seen the children riding with their parents before detonating the bomb, which ripped off the roof of the bus and killed at least 21 people, including six children.

A few hours earlier, a suicide bomber detonated a truck piled with 1,500 pounds of munitions outside the U.N.'s headquarters in downtown Baghdad, killing 20 people.

ARMED WITH BOMBS AND CAMERAS?

In southern Lebanon 20 years ago, Hezbollah members shot film of its suicide attacks and handed the grisly images to television stations, so they could be broadcast within hours. Those first films became recruitment videos, aired for free. More recently, suicide bombers have left behind videotapes explaining their actions, while others have posed for studio portraits before blowing themselves up.

Ranstorp worries that the next phase of suicide bombings will involve more videotaping of attacks. He worries that satellite channels will air the horrible moments almost instantly to a future generation of suicide bombers. "They learned from the psychological impact of 9/11, the horrible moment being replayed over and over," he says. "Someday, terrorists will be armed with bombs and cameras."

MAJOR SUICIDE BOMBINGS [1983-2003]

April 18 and Oct. 23, 1983

In Lebanon, truck bombers hit U.S. embassy in Beirut; 63 killed; and barracks of Marines on peacekeeping mission; 241 killed.

Aug. 7, 1998

Bombs explode outside the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; 301 killed.

Oct. 12, 2000

An explosive-filled boat rams the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen; 17 killed.

Sept. 11, 2001

Hijacked airplanes are crashed into the World Trade Center towers the, Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania; 3,056 killed.

Oct. 12, 2002

A car bomb explodes outside a disco on Bali, in Indonesia; 202 killed.

Dec. 27, 2002

In Russia, two trucks target a government building in Grozny, Chechnya; 72 killed.

May 12, 2003

Four attacks on Western compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 25 killed.

July 5, 2003

Suicide attack at a Moscow rock festival; 16 killed.

Aug. 5, 2003

A car bomb explodes at the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia; 16 killed.

Aug. 19, 2003

A truck bomb destroys the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad; 20 killed.

September 2000-Present

More than 100 suicide bombings in Israel and the occupied territories; at least 870 killed.

A Healer Becomes a Victim in Israel

Dr. David Applebaum rushed to terror attacks to help the wounded. Last month, he was killed in one.

In Jerusalem, responding to terror attacks has become a grim medical specialty, and Dr. David Applebaum, who spent years dashing to bomb sites to treat the wounded, was known as "the first man on the scene."

On September 10, Applebaum, 50, was present at the bombing of a cafe--this time as a victim. He was killed with his daughter Nava, 20, as they ventured out for a late-night snack and a father-daughter talk on the eve of her wedding.

Instead of giving his daughter away later that week at a large celebration, Applebaum was buried alongside Nava in an even larger funeral in Jerusalem.

Hundreds had planned to spend the evening dancing with the Applebaums. Instead, thousands mourned for them. "He was a great combination of spirituality and humanity," said Aviva Cayam, who knew Applebaum when they grew up together in Cleveland.

Applebaum and his daughter had gone to Cafe Hillel, on a street tined with restaurants and trendy shops. A Palestinian attacker with a bomb strapped to his back tried to enter a neighboring pizza parlor, but was pushed back by a security guard, He ran a few steps to the cafe and detonated his explosive as he burst past security at the door.

That blast and another suicide bombing near Tel Aviv that day killed 15 Israelis and wounded dozens. After about 100 suicide bombings in the past three years, the Israeli emergency response has become a sadly well-ordered drill.

Nava Applebaum was the third of Applebaum's six children. She performed two years of national service after high school, working at a home for children with cancer.

The day of his death, Applebaum had returned to Israel from speaking at a conference in New York--timed for the the World Trade Center attack's second anniversary--on how doctors can best respond to terror attacks.

--Greg Myre

Why Suicide Bombings Have Become Terrorists' Weapons of Choice

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

* Suppose the government asked the news media to curtail coverage of suicide bombings to reduce their shock value. What are the pros and cons of complying with such a request?

* What might Raed Abdul Hamid Misk tell his children about his attack if he could speak to them? What might an Israeli parent say to his or her children?

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

To help students understand the roots of suicide bombings by terrorists around the world.

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES

BEFORE READING: Tell students that Islam explicitly prohibits suicide and the killing of innocent civilians. In order to get around this prohibition, Islamic groups that promote such suicide bombings regard the bombers as martyrs and the civilians they kill as military targets.

ROLE-PLAY: Discuss some experts' view that suicide bombers are not "crazies," but desperate people who feel exploited by forces (Israel, America, the West) beyond their control. Do students agree? You might divide the class into two teams--prosecutors and defense attorneys--reminding students of the experts' opinion of the suicide bombers' state of mind.

BOMBER ON TRIAL: Tell students to assume that police have caught a would be suicide bomber before she could trigger the explosives strapped to her body. Remind students that in a democracy, the government is under a legal obligation to provide a fair trial, even to those defendants who are charged with the most heinous of crimes.

BOMBER'S STATE OF MIND: Both sides should use information in the article to develop arguments that lead to different conclusions'. For example, address Scott Atran's view that bombers are not crazies, that what motivates them is diminishing expectations. (Might diminishing expectations be equivalent to a sense of hopelessness?)

How might the defense use diminishing expectations to argue that the defendant should receive treatment for mental illness rather than being jailed? How might the prosecution argue that diminishing expectations should not be considered as a mitigating factor in sentencing?

Prosecutors and defense might also refer to the bombers' belief that they achieve instant glory. How might each side cite this state of mind to bolster arguments for harsh punishment or less severe punishment?

Upfront QUIZ 3

MULTIPLE CHOICE

Directions: Circle the letter next to the correct answer..

1. Suicide bombing, pioneered in Lebanon two decades ago, has been adopted by Hamas, a terror group among

a Iraqis. b Palestinians. c Saudi Arabians. d Jordanians.

2. A1 Qaeda

a was the former government of Afghanistan. b rules Saudi Arabia. c is a terrorist group led by Yassir Arafat. d is the group that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001.

3. The article reports that suicide bomber volunteers are generally infused with an "urgent purpose" and the promise of

a forgiveness. b awareness. c villainy. d glory.

4. A Hamas leader recently killed by the Israeli military explained that all a suicide bomber needed to succeed was

a skill and training. b luck. c a moment of courage. d the desire to achieve revenge.

5. Recent suicide bombings have hurt the prospects for President's Bush's "road map" toward

a a rejuvenated economy. b enhanced U.S.-Mideast trade. c better U.S.-Israel relations. d Mideast peace.

6. One expert on terrorism says suicide bombers are not "crazies," but are driven by a sense of diminishing

a expectations. b economic resources. c recognition. d development.

Upfront Quiz 3,

1. (b) Palestinians 2. (d) is the group that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. 3. (d) glory. 4. (c) a moment of courage. 5. (d) Mideast peace. 6. (a) expectations.