Strategy of Suicide Terrorism in Türkiye

30.06.2024 | Nuriye NİĞDELİOĞLU HAPPANİ , Fahri ERENEL

Suicide terrorism is a phenomenon with conventional warfare and conventional targets/tactics. Suicide attacks, which emerged in the latter half of the 20th century, have been on the rise with each passing day. Uncertainties regarding the reasons why an individual would attempt to collectively kill themselves or others for a belief they hold still persist. The complexity of the phenomenon of suicide terrorism arises from the inability to determine when terrorist organizations carried out suicide attacks in response to which political, religious, or ideological events. The occupation of Afghanistan by the USA after the September 11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, along with the instability in the Middle East, contributed to the increase in suicide attacks. This article aims to analyze the ideology, target audience, time/space, purpose/method relationship, the periods in which suicide attacks occurred, and their contributions to terrorist organizations, which are used as acts of killing among the most significant political events in the contemporary world. This research consists of three parts, the first part discusses the debate on the concept of suicide terrorism in the literature. In the second part, hypotheses prepared using the CPOST suicide attack database are analyzed. In the conclusion, suicide attacks carried out in Türkiye are evaluated in proportion to the hypotheses.

Niğdelioğlu Happani, N. & Erenel, F. (2024). Strategy of Suicide Terrorism in Türkiye. Journal of Terrorism and Radicalization Studies, 3(2), pp. 219-238, DOI: 10.61314/traddergi.1451129