Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror
What motivates suicide bombers in Iraq and around the world? Can winning the hearts and minds of local populations stop them? Will the phenomenon spread to the United States? These vital questions are at the heart of this important book. Mia Bloom examines the use, strategies, successes, and failures of suicide bombing in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe and assesses the effectiveness of government responses. She argues that in many instances the efforts of Israel, Russia, and the United States in Iraq have failed to deter terrorism and suicide bombings. Bloom also considers how terrorist groups learn from one another, how they respond to counterterror tactics, the financing of terrorism, and the role of suicide attacks against the backdrop of larger ethnic and political conflicts.

Dying to Kill begins with a review of the long history of terrorism, from ancient times to modernity, from the Japanese Kamikazes during World War II, to the Palestinian, Tamil, Iraqi, and Chechen terrorists of today. Bloom explores how suicide terror is used to achieve the goals of terrorist groups: to instill public fear, attract international news coverage, gain support for their cause, and create solidarity or competition between disparate terrorist organizations. She contends that it is often social and political motivations rather than inherently religious ones that inspire suicide bombers. In her chapter focusing on the increasing number of women suicide bombers and terrorists, Bloom examines Sri Lanka, where 33 percent of bombers have been women; Turkey, where the PKK used women feigning pregnancy as bombers; and the role of the Black Widows in the Chechen struggle against Moscow.

The motives of individuals, whether religious or nationalist, are important but the larger question is, what external factors make it possible for suicide terrorism to flourish? Bloom describes these conditions and develops a theory of why terrorist tactics work in some instances and fail in others.
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Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror
What motivates suicide bombers in Iraq and around the world? Can winning the hearts and minds of local populations stop them? Will the phenomenon spread to the United States? These vital questions are at the heart of this important book. Mia Bloom examines the use, strategies, successes, and failures of suicide bombing in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe and assesses the effectiveness of government responses. She argues that in many instances the efforts of Israel, Russia, and the United States in Iraq have failed to deter terrorism and suicide bombings. Bloom also considers how terrorist groups learn from one another, how they respond to counterterror tactics, the financing of terrorism, and the role of suicide attacks against the backdrop of larger ethnic and political conflicts.

Dying to Kill begins with a review of the long history of terrorism, from ancient times to modernity, from the Japanese Kamikazes during World War II, to the Palestinian, Tamil, Iraqi, and Chechen terrorists of today. Bloom explores how suicide terror is used to achieve the goals of terrorist groups: to instill public fear, attract international news coverage, gain support for their cause, and create solidarity or competition between disparate terrorist organizations. She contends that it is often social and political motivations rather than inherently religious ones that inspire suicide bombers. In her chapter focusing on the increasing number of women suicide bombers and terrorists, Bloom examines Sri Lanka, where 33 percent of bombers have been women; Turkey, where the PKK used women feigning pregnancy as bombers; and the role of the Black Widows in the Chechen struggle against Moscow.

The motives of individuals, whether religious or nationalist, are important but the larger question is, what external factors make it possible for suicide terrorism to flourish? Bloom describes these conditions and develops a theory of why terrorist tactics work in some instances and fail in others.
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Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror

Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror

by Mia Bloom
Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror

Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror

by Mia Bloom

Paperback

$27.95 
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Overview

What motivates suicide bombers in Iraq and around the world? Can winning the hearts and minds of local populations stop them? Will the phenomenon spread to the United States? These vital questions are at the heart of this important book. Mia Bloom examines the use, strategies, successes, and failures of suicide bombing in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe and assesses the effectiveness of government responses. She argues that in many instances the efforts of Israel, Russia, and the United States in Iraq have failed to deter terrorism and suicide bombings. Bloom also considers how terrorist groups learn from one another, how they respond to counterterror tactics, the financing of terrorism, and the role of suicide attacks against the backdrop of larger ethnic and political conflicts.

Dying to Kill begins with a review of the long history of terrorism, from ancient times to modernity, from the Japanese Kamikazes during World War II, to the Palestinian, Tamil, Iraqi, and Chechen terrorists of today. Bloom explores how suicide terror is used to achieve the goals of terrorist groups: to instill public fear, attract international news coverage, gain support for their cause, and create solidarity or competition between disparate terrorist organizations. She contends that it is often social and political motivations rather than inherently religious ones that inspire suicide bombers. In her chapter focusing on the increasing number of women suicide bombers and terrorists, Bloom examines Sri Lanka, where 33 percent of bombers have been women; Turkey, where the PKK used women feigning pregnancy as bombers; and the role of the Black Widows in the Chechen struggle against Moscow.

The motives of individuals, whether religious or nationalist, are important but the larger question is, what external factors make it possible for suicide terrorism to flourish? Bloom describes these conditions and develops a theory of why terrorist tactics work in some instances and fail in others.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780231133210
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication date: 06/15/2007
Pages: 280
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Mia Bloom is an assistant professor of International Affairs at the University of Georgia in Athens. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and member of the Council of World Affairs. She has published numerous articles on war, terrorism, and ethnic conflict, and her research investigates atrocities across several regions, contrasting the Middle East with South Asia, Europe, and Africa. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and Crail, Scotland.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Chapter 1. Introduction: The Historical Antecedents of Terror
Chapter 2. Palestinian Suicide Bombing: Public Support, Market Share and Outbidding
Chapter 3. Ethnic Conflict, State Terror and Suicide Bombing in Sri Lanka
Chapter 4.Devising a Theory of Suicide Terror
Chapter 5. Halting Suicide Terror from Within: the PKK in Turkey
Chapter 6. Terror 101: Transnational Contagion Effects of Suicide Bombing
Chapter 7. Feminism, Rape and War: Engendering Suicide Terror?
Chapter 8. Conclusions and Prospects for the Future: Will Iraq Cause Suicide Terror at Home?
Appendix
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

Jessica Stern

The most insightful and comprehensive assessment of suicide bombing to date. Why do they do it? How can we stop them? In focusing on a type of terrorism likely to be increasingly important in the future, Mia Bloom has performed an important service for all of us.

Jessica Stern, author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill

Bruce Hoffman

Dying to Kill is the first scholarly, book-length treatment of the phenomenon of suicide terrorism. It is at once strengthened and enlivened by Mia Bloom's mastery of the subject, her impressive fieldwork and new and novel approaches to analyzing this growing threat. Most importantly, this is a book that will appeal as much to those charged with countering suicide terrorism as to scholars seeking to understand it.

Bruce Hoffman, author of Inside Terrorism editor-in-chief of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and senior Fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center, U.S. Military Academy

David C. Rapoport

The most comprehensive and lucid book on suicide terror available, one that helps take the mystery out of the phenomena.

David C. Rapoport, editor, Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence

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