Suicidal bomb explosions in Sri Lanka

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rohan Ruwanpura, MD, DLM, DFM(RCPA), DMJ ◽  
Kiribathgalage Sunil Kumara, MBBS, MD, DLM ◽  
Hemamal Jayawardane, MBBS, DLM, MD, LLB ◽  
Lalantha B.L. De Alwis, MBBS, DLM, MD

Injuries due to explosive devices are often seen in Sri Lanka. The involvement of suicide bombers is the peculiar feature of these bomb explosions. Analysis of injuries observed in the suicide bombers showed distinctive injury patterns consisting of detachment of the head and limbs, severe disruption of the trunk, burns at the transected tissue margins, presence of cyanide capsule in the neck, and absence of the shrapnel injuries. These findings are helpful in recognition of the perpetrator for the subsequent legal proceedings and also important in organization of preventive measures.In this context, suicide bomber could be defined as an individual carrying high explosive device, attached to his/her body and must be recognized as a separate medicolegal entity.

Author(s):  
William P. Fox ◽  
John Binstock ◽  
Mike Minutas

Among the many weapons currently used by terrorist organizations against public welfare and coalition forces, human-born Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) present a significant threat. Commonly referred to as suicide bombers, these individuals enter crowded public areas in order to detonate their IED, inflicting lethal damage to the surrounding individuals. Constructed of non-standard parts and hidden under layers of clothing, these human-born IEDs go undetected until detonated. Currently, there are no detection systems that can identify suicide bombers at adequate standoff distances. The authors developed models and a methodology that examine current technologies to increase the probability of identifying a suicide bomber at a checkpoint or marketplace with an adequate standoff distance. The proposed methodology employs sensor technology incorporating unique detection threshold values. The authors analyze our proposed methodology utilizing a simulation model that provides both the probability of detecting a bomber and the probability of a false detection. These simulations will allow us to determine the threshold values for each sensor that result in the best probability of detection of a suicide bomber and allows for a small probability of false detections. Using experimentally “good” threshold values, the authors were able to drastically increase the probability of detection with a combination of radar and thermal imagery. In this paper, the main sensor is the hand-held radar.


1981 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. R. Johnson

This paper demonstrates the capability to perform three-dimensional computations for explosive-metal interaction problems with complex sliding surfaces. An analysis is performed for an explosive device which accelerates a metal liner known as a self-forging fragment. Results are presented to show the effects of off-center detonation, asymmetric liner thickness, and asymmetric explosive density for an otherwise axisymmetric device. These three-dimensional conditions have little effect on the linear velocities, but they do introduce significant angular velocities to the self-forging fragment. Unlike projectile-target impact computations, which require only a single sliding surface between the projectile and the target, the explosive devices have multiple, intersecting, three-dimensional sliding surfaces between the expanding explosive gases and the various metal portions of the devices. Included are descriptions of the specialized “search routines” and the “double-pass” approach used for the explosive-metal interfaces.


Author(s):  
Thomas J. Nelson ◽  
Travis Clark ◽  
Eric T. Stedje-Larsen ◽  
Christopher T. Lewis ◽  
James M. Grueskin ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
pp. 129-140
Author(s):  
Sophia Moskalenko ◽  
Clark McCauley

This chapter evaluates the moral threat of suicide terrorism. Political and psychological resilience to the threat of suicide bombing requires understanding the difference between suicide bombers and true martyrs. A martyr’s political power comes from the indisputable evidence—the martyr’s own suffering at the hands of the powerful—that the powerful are corrupt and unjust. This evidence is tainted if the would-be martyr indulges in provocation, aggression, or retaliation. The authors offer three directions that can help boost Western political resilience in facing suicide bombers, emphasizing the importance of clearly understanding the definitions of martyr, victim, suicide bomber, and terrorist and how perceptions can be changed in the immediate aftermath of an attack or an uprising.


2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-393
Author(s):  
Neil K. Aggarwal

AbstractThis paper complicates the notion of the suicide bomber as represented in mental health literature. Most authors apply Western psychiatric concepts to understand suicide bombers without accounting for value differences around life and death or terrorism and martyrdom. Accordingly, these researchers replicate arguments to explain individual behaviour from a particular epistemological perspective. In contrast, critical approaches to this literature can expose the worldviews of the analysers and the analysed to devise sounder interpretations. This paper scrutinises mental health discourse on suicide bombing to ask: (1) What do we learn about the authors of suicide bombers in these articles? (2) How do their analyses demonstrate the relationship between knowledge and power? These conclusions can enable researchers to reduce biases and devise behavioural models that more accurately reflect the realities of their subjects.


Author(s):  
Mia Dayanti Fajar ◽  
Elisabeth Dewi

ISIS and Al-Qaeda are now recruiting women to join terrorism groups. These two large terrorist groups even show the real use of women as suicide bombers in terrorist acts. This is certainly controversial since women have a close relationship with peace. It indicates a shift in traditional feminist thinking saying that women are identical with peace. The involvement of women in terrorism can also be traced in Indonesia. In December 2016, Indonesia was shocked by the arrest of a prospective suicide bomber with her husband. The phenomenon occurred along with female Chechen suicide bombers, Black Widows, who blew themselves up to avenge their husbands’ death. This paper aims to explain the involvement of women in the world of terrorism and any reason taken by women to commit suicide bombings. The result of this research revealed that women were involved in terrorism because of patriarchal culture and personal factors that was based on religion by doctrinization in Indonesia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 176-181
Author(s):  
Mircea Vladu ◽  
Stelian Popescu

AbstractAll media, from states that have sent military structures to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc., have commented and continue to comment extensively on the effects of military outbreaks of improvised explosive devices, abbreviated IED. Many civilians are rightly wondering what an IED is and what destructive performance it records as a result of its coming into operation by different means. Years ago it was found that there were also some soldiers who did not have much knowledge about IEDs and consequently lost their lives, especially in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan, because they did not have the necessary and sufficient training, based on which to be able to apply procedures if they discovered these „tools of death”, located on the ground or at targets, or when trying to help their comrades seriously injured by the explosions of these devices. In those conditions, the military decision-makers imposed the implementation in the combat manuals of EOD protection. With all the measures taken, by the military decision-makers, the IEDs continued to make new victims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc., among the local defense forces, the multinational Coalition military, the civilian population, the animals used as suicide bombers, etc. Starting from this finding and knowing what was written about these „tools of death” through combat manuals and specialized articles, developed by the military based on the lessons learned from the „dust” of Iraq and Afghanistan, I intend, through this paper, to try to put together some information that will provide further insights into IEDs and the danger it poses to local defense forces, to the Alliance’s military and civilian population, who are on Afghan ground.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76
Author(s):  
Sergij Boltivets ◽  
Olga Okhremenko

The article presents the psychological genesis of terrorism in eastern Ukraine, referred to as the Donetsk Basin, during the Soviet era, which resulted from prioritising coal over the lives of Ukrainians affected by famine, executions, evictions and repression imposed by Russians. The replacement of the ethnic composition of the population by people from Russia led to the formation of a group of colonisers of Ukraine. This required creating an atmosphere of constant tension, fear and criminalised violence. As a consequence, the Donetsk Basin has become a favourable environment for Russians and their supporters, who were potentially prone to terrorist acts, and the most dangerous category of such persons — suicide bombers. The paper describes the emergence of a wave theory concerning terrorism in Europe, radical movements in Ireland, Macedonia, Serbia, Italy and Spain, as well as the current state of terrorism in Italy, Germany, Japan and many other countries. It covers the first terrorist act of Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine near the village of Kamyanka, in the Donetsk region, where a checkpoint of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was attacked by a suicide bomber using a minibus loaded with explosives. It was also a place where other similar terrorist acts took place and the manifesto of Australian terrorist Brenton Tarrant was distributed in the centre of Ukraine by a terrorist group from the Russian Federation in order to involve prone persons in subversive activities on racial and religious grounds. The study was created using a nonparametric typology, based on the analysis of at least two parameters: the nuclei of vulnerabilities (targets of influence) and the features of intrapsychic formations arising under their influence. This allowed identifying five psychotypes of potential suicide bombers: of a person who has lost emotional connection with the outside world; of a fanatic of faith, associated with the activation of ‘mortido’ — the desire for death; of a fanatic of an idea, which considers the cessation of life as a spiritual transformation, and martyrdom as an integral element of the spiritual path; of a potential suicide bomber associated with extreme manifestations of protest behaviour; persons with psychopathic changes in personality structure. The paper establishes the prevalence of these psychotypes and comparative possibilities of influencing each of them.


2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-315
Author(s):  
Andrea Michelle Morris

Abstract Suicide attackers are frequently educated and economically well-off. These findings are widely taken as evidence that highly competent individuals predominately volunteer to conduct suicide operations. I evaluate this theory using a novel dataset on the personnel records of members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The dataset contains information on the characteristics of individuals who volunteer for suicide attacks as opposed to normal combat missions. The results reject the self-selection hypothesis, as education and religious knowledge are negatively associated with volunteering for suicide attacks. Instead, the findings are consistent with an alternative explanation for why high-quality individuals commit suicide attacks: leaders of terrorist organizations carefully screen recruits and select high-quality individuals to commit these attacks. The results highlight the importance of leader demand rather than soldier supply of suicide bombers.


2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. S101-S122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Berzins ◽  
Jacqueline Beckvermit ◽  
Todd Harman ◽  
Andrew Bezdjian ◽  
Alan Humphrey ◽  
...  

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