Suicide Bombers in Iraq: The Strategy and Ideology of Martyrdom »

Mohammed Hafez is a visiting professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. A grantee of the United States Institute of Peace and a former Guggenheim Foundation fellow and USIA fellow, his previous publications include Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World (2003).

The war in Iraq was supposed to be easy. Instead it has delivered the message that Islamic resistance and martyrdom can defeat the only remaining superpower, just as jihadists drove the Soviet Union from Afghanistan during the 1980s. Now a haven for jihadists, Iraq has entered a civil war whose duration, scope, and magnitude have yet to be determined.

The overwhelming majority of suicide attacks in Iraq have targeted Iraqi security forces and Shia civilians, not coalition forces. The perpetrators appear to be largely non-Iraqi volunteers. Many are from Saudi Arabia, but substantial numbers have come from Europe, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan and North Africa. They are foiling U.S. plans to stabilize the country and turn it into a democratic regime and an ally in a region of religious radicalism, entrenched authoritarianism, and hostile states with nuclear ambitions.

Understanding the phenomenon of suicide bombing in Iraq is therefore vitally important for U.S. national security, foreign policy in the Muslim world, and the war on terrorism. This study, the first of its kind on the Iraqi insurgency, draws extensively on open-source intelligence and papers of record, primary sources from insurgent groups including online documents and videos, and interviews with U.S. servicemen who have served in Iraq. It examines the history of suicide bombing in Iraq and many other countries, theoretical perspectives on suicide bombing, the varied factions that comprise the insurgency, the ideology and theology of martyrdom supporting suicide bombers, their national origins and characteristics, and the prospects for a “third generation” of transnational jihadists forged in the crucible of Iraq.

List of Charts     VIII
Foreword   Martha Crenshaw     IX
Acknowledgments     XIII
List of Acronyms     XV
A Note on Data, Sources, and Terms     XVII
Introduction: Suicide Bombers in Historical and Theoretical Perspective     3
Insurgents and Their Strategies
Nationalists and Baathists     35
The Jihadi Salafis     63
Suicide Terrorism in the Iraqi Insurgency     89
The Alchemy of Martyrdom: Ideology, Theology, and Mythology of Suicide Terrorism
The Ideology and Theology of Martyrdom     117
Martyrdom Mythology in Iraq     141
Martyrs without Borders: Transnational Networks and Volunteerism in Iraq
Arab Fighters in Iraq     165
European Muslims in Iraq     189
Implications for Theory and Policy     213
List of Sunni Insurgent Groups in Iraq, 2003-2006     243
Names and Nationalities of Known Suicide Bombers in Iraq     251
Zarqawi's Men     255
Al Qaeda's Evolution in Iraq     257
Index     259
About the Author     287