Suicide attacks--increasingly recurrent phenomena--destabilize and terrorize local populations while bringing widespread attention to insurgencies throughout the world. By exploring the motives behind this inexpensive, effective tactic, RAND has provided useful and timely information to military, police, intelligence, and security services on addressing and countering this type of threat.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The authors discuss the correlation between economic conditions, the characteristics of suicide terrorists, and the targets they attack.
COMMENTARY
There may be some spontaneous acts by individuals enraged by Bin Laden's death who are inspired to follow him into martyrdom. But these are the spasms of reaction, not planned retaliatory operations, and will not demonstrate that Al Qaeda can survive Bin Laden, writes Brian Michael Jenkins.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This paper adds to the debate on the relation between economic conditions and terrorism bystudying the intensive rather than the extensive margin of terrorism.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The literature on conflict and terrorism has paid little attention to the economic costs of terrorism for the perpetrators. This article aims to fill that gap by examining the economic costs of harboring suicide terror attacks.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This paper attempts to fill this gap by linking novel micro-level data on house demolitions(a policy used by the Israeli Defense Forces [IDF] to combat and deter terrorism) and suicideattacks, empirically documenting the effects of house demolitions on future suicide attacks
REPORT
In testimony presented before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Brian Michael Jenkins assesses the tragic and disquieting events at Fort Hood in the context of terrorist violence in the U.S. and the Muslim American community .
COMMENTARY
The Obama administration's decision to withdraw the bulk of United Sates troops from Iraq over the next 19 months has sparked fears that Iraq will once again plunge into the wide-scale and debilitating violence that it endured from 2004 to 2007. Those fears are, for the most part, overblown, writes Lowell Schwartz.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This article seeks to demonstrate that evolutionary theory provides intriguing insights into two phenomena that observers find difficult to understand: political violence and female political violence.
COMMENTARY
The recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, are part of a disturbing trend across the Muslim world of groups that target civilians in the name of Islam. Less visible to Western eyes, but potentially just as significant, is a growing backlash among Muslims who condemn such attacks as unethical, writes Seth Jones.
COMMENTARY
While female suicide bombers in Iraq have been getting all the headlines, a very different cadre of women has emerged on the scene with the opposite goal of forging peace and paving over the sectarian differences. Above all, these activists want to take back the streets and neighborhoods of their country, write Edward O'Connell and Cheryl Benard.
COMMENTARY
The recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, are part of a disturbing trend across the Muslim world of groups that target civilians in the name of Islam. Less visible to Western eyes, but potentially just as significant, is a growing backlash among Muslims who condemn such attacks as unethical, writes Seth Jones.
COMMENTARY
The 9/11 tragedy was a catalyst that accelerated the pace of the changes in the UK security model that were already occurring due to the waning threat of terrorism from the IRA and the growing threat from those who espoused an ideology of violent jihadism. The changes took place in three main areas, writes Lindsay Clutterbuck.
COMMENTARY
A significant emphasis has been placed on female suicide bombers' tactical success, and efforts to determine why they kill focus on al-Qaida's recruitment of women. But little attention is paid to the personal motivation women have for killing themselves and dozens of innocents around them, writes Farhana Ali.
COMMENTARY
Muslim female suicide bombers are on the rise.... But for those of us who have studied the phenomenon, the assaults should not come as a surprise, writes Farhana Ali.
REPORT
A formalized system of data collection will help monitor the extent and type of violence against Iraq civilians and will help improve U.S. counterinsurgency efforts.
COMMENTARY
Cheryl Benard and Ed O'Connell write about their time in Syria discovering creative outlets in media, such as how a director in a country known for defending terrorism could produce "entertainment" that portrayed quite the opposite.
NEWS RELEASE
The inability of the United States to monitor insurgent trends in Iraq and apply new counterinsurgency tactics led many Iraqi civilians to side with sectarian groups, propelling the country to the brink of civil war.
COMMENTARY
There is a growing movement in Canada to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, illustrated by such newspaper headlines as: "Is it time to go?" and "Canada must leave Afghanistan." Such a move would be a tragic mistake, writes Seth G. Jones.
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