Understanding and Responding to Suicide Terrorism

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

Suicide terrorism is a tactic that is commonly understood to afford assailants’ greater precision in targeting and to convey more profound meaning, compared to attacks in which perpetrators do not take their own lives. In addition, because this strategy involves perpetrators transporting explosives on or near their bodies, it raises particular obstacles for authorities tasked with preventing such attacks while minimizing interference with citizens’ routine activities. The presentations in this panel examine several dimensions of suicide terrorism, including the challenges of collecting comprehensive data, the question of whether suicide bombings are situationally unique, and the effectiveness of security measures intended to prevent perpetrators from bringing explosives onto airplanes.

Sub Unit

• Area V: Types of Offending / 28: State Crime, Political Crime, and Terrorism

Individual Presentations

• The Source of the Matter: Comparing Suicide Attack Data - Joseph Oudin, University of Maryland; Omi Hodwitz, University of Maryland; Aaron Safer-Lichtenstein, University of Maryland

• Suicide Bombings and Situational Clustering: Are Bombing Tactics that Different? - Michael Distler, University of Maryland

• Threats to Aviation: Assessing the Effectiveness of Security Measures - Omi Hodwitz, University of Maryland

Chair

• Omi Hodwitz, University of Maryland