The dissertation's conclusion offers practical policy recommendations based on the findings of this study, in which special emphasis is placed on the ideological component of the struggle against suicide attacks and terrorism in general.

2009 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice This groundbreaking volume examines the rise and spread of suicide attacks over the past decade. Sorting through 1,270 terror strikes between 1981 and 2007, Assaf Moghadam attributes their recent proliferation to the mutually related ascendance of al Qaeda and its guiding ideology, Salafi Jihad, an extreme interpretation of Islam that rejects national boundaries and seeks to create a global Muslim community. In exploring the roots of the extreme radicalization represented by Salafism, Moghadam finds many causes, including Western dominance in the Arab world, the physical diffusion of Salafi institutions and actors, and the element of opportunity created by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He uses individual examples from the Middle East, Southwest Asia, and Europe to show how the elite leaders of al Qaeda and affiliated groups and their foot soldiers interact with one another and how they garner support—and a growing number of converts and attackers—from the Muslim community. Based on over a decade of empirical research and a critical examination of existing thought on suicide attacks, Moghadam distinguishes the key characteristics separating globalized suicide strikes from the traditional, localized pattern that previously prevailed. This unflinching analysis provides new information about the relationship between ideology and suicide attacks and recommends policies focused on containing Salafi Jihadism.

This highly topical new study clearly shows how there are at least two reasons to question the central role that is assigned to religion, in particular Islam, when explaining suicide terrorism. suicide terrorism is a modern phenomenon, yet Islam is a very old religion. Except for two periods in the twelfth and eighteenth centuries, suicide was never part of Islamist beliefs and behaviours. Actually, Islam clearly forbids suicide, hence, the argument that Islamic religious beliefs are the main cause of suicide terrorism is inherently dubious many suicide attacks have been carried out by secular organizations with little connection to fundamentalist Islam: Palestinian Fatah; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; and the Kurdish Workers Party. Moreover, one of the organizations that has employed this strategy devastatingly and regularly is the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam). Not only are members of this organization not Muslim, most of them are not religious at all. This superb new book contains essays by some of the world's leading scholars of terrorism and political violence. It is essential reading for students of terrorism, political science and Middle Eastern politics, and useful to students of social psychology, theology and history.

Includes a new Afterword Finalist for the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award One of the world’s foremost authorities on the subject of suicide terrorism, the esteemed political scientist Robert Pape has created the first comprehensive database of every suicide terrorist attack in the world from 1980 until today. In Dying to Win, Pape provides a groundbreaking demographic profile of modern suicide terrorist attackers–and his findings offer a powerful counterpoint to what we now accept as conventional wisdom on the topic. He also examines the early practitioners of this guerrilla tactic, including the ancient Jewish Zealots, who in A.D. 66 wished to liberate themselves from Roman occupation; the Ismaili Assassins, a Shi’ite Muslim sect in northern Iran in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; World War II’s Japanese kamikaze pilots, three thousand of whom crashed into U.S. naval vessels; and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a secular, Marxist-Leninist organization responsible for more suicide terrorist attacks than any other group in history. Dying to Win is a startling work of analysis grounded in fact, not politics, that recommends concrete ways for states to fight and prevent terrorist attacks now. Transcending speculation with systematic scholarship, this is one of the most important studies of the terrorist threat to the United States and its allies since 9/11. “Invaluable . . . gives Americans an urgently needed basis for devising a strategy to defeat Osama bin Laden and other Islamist militants.” –Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris “Provocative . . . Pape wants to change the way you think about suicide bombings and explain why they are on the rise.” –Henry Schuster, CNN.com “Enlightening . . . sheds interesting light on a phenomenon often mistakenly believed to be restricted to the Middle East.” –The Washington Post Book World “Brilliant.” –Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc.

On behalf of the WEA Mission Commission, William Carey Library is pleased to launch a landmark anthology and resource. This is a new publication in the Globalization of Mission series, Sorrow & Blood: Christian Mission in Contexts of Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom. The editorial team of William Taylor (USA), Tonica van der Meer (Brazil), and Reg Reimer (Canada) worked over four years to compile this unique resource anthology. This book is the product of the Mission Commission's global missiology task force and a worldwide team of committed colleagues and writers. Some 62 writers from 23 nations have collaborated to generate this unique global resource and anthology. Ajith Fernando of Sri Lanka and Christopher Wright of the UK each wrote prefaces to the book This latest WEA volume has the potential of profoundly shaping our approach to mission in today’s challenging and increasingly dangerous world.

In recent years, terrorism has become closely associated with martyrdom in the minds of many terrorists and in the view of nations around the world. In Islam, martyrdom is mostly conceived as "bearing witness" to faith and God. Martyrdom is also central to the Christian tradition, not only in the form of Christ's Passion or saints faced with persecution and death, but in the duty to lead a good and charitable life. In both religions, the association of religious martyrdom with political terror has a long and difficult history. The essays of this volume illuminate this history--following, for example, Christian martyrdom from its origins in the Roman world, to the experience of the deaths of "terrorist" leaders of the French Revolution, to parallels in the contemporary world--and explore historical parallels among Islamic, Christian, and secular traditions. Featuring essays from eminent scholars in a wide range of disciplines, Martyrdom and Terrorism provides a timely comparative history of the practices and discourses of terrorism and martyrdom from antiquity to the twenty-first century.