Suicide Bombers: The Liberation Tigers Of Tamil Ealam

Three hundred people died in Lebanon, 130 dead in Paris, 324 dead in Baghdad, just a few of the thousands of lives that have been lost to suicide bombers. As suicide bombings are becoming more common, the size of the bombings is also increasing drastically (“Suicide Bombers”). People all around the world are being affected either through grief due to them losing someone to suicide bombings, or merely through sympathy for the innocent people that were lost due to the bombings. Suicide Bombers are a threat that should not be taken lightly due to how much damage they can cause and how easily they can be manipulated. They have been causing disturbances since they first began with the Tamil Tigers in 1983 to now, with many more organizations that each cause immense damage.

Suicide bombings are when a person decides to sacrifice themselves for what they believe in, which can cause an enormous amount of damage. Usually, a suicide bomber has an organization that can support, supply, and protect the bomber until his inevitable death (“The Motivations of Suicide Bombers”). Some of the earliest forms of suicide bombers include the Kamikaze planes during World War II or when the Jewish Zealots used themselves in the first century of Judea as weapons of suicide against the Romans (Vedantam).

Starting with, The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE), also known as Tamil Tigers, are one of the most well-known suicide bombing organizations based in Sri Lanka. Just this one organization of suicide bombers ended up making the country of Sri Lanka itself one of the most, if not the most, suicide bombed areas in the world. They are the ones people believe to have developed suicide bombing as a terrorist weapon which links them to suicide bombing history. The first-ever suicide bombing to occur in Sri Lanka was in 1983 by the Tamil Tigers, which erupted a major war between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government, not ending until 2009 when they formed a truce. All the suicide bombings had stopped for the most part after the 2009 truce until a major bombing occurred on Easter of 2019, caused by a local Islamic extremist group called the National Thowheeth Jama’ath. This bombing ended the lives of 359 innocent people and injured over 500 (Gunia).

Following this, a couple of years ago in the United Kingdom, after an Ariana Grande concert, there was a suicide bombing as everyone was leaving the building. The man committing the crime was only twenty-two years old who was born and raised in Manchester but with Lebonanian descent. This shows the bombers do not have a specific look or history but can come out of nowhere(¨Suicide Bombers¨). Mohammed Hafez, a professor at the University of Missouri discovered that ¨The Chechen suicide bombers oftentimes have been raped or mistreated by soldiers. This is an ideal story of a person who has been mistreated and all of a sudden has empowered themselves to strike back” (¨The Motivations of Suicide Bombers¨) which explains the suicide bombers perspective on how they do not see the damage they can cause, but only see the benefits that can come from it. The professor also stated that “There’s what motivates an individual to carry out a suicide attack and then what motivates an organization” (¨The Motivations of Suicide Bombers¨) which means that the individual is most likely doing it for what the believe, while the organization probably has ulterior motives as to why they want to go through with the suicide bombing (¨The Motivations of Suicide Bombers¨). Another underrated way of motivation for suicide bombers is through television and propaganda. Certain propaganda will use images that make certainly make people’s blood boil to an extent to which they believe it is up to them to do something about it, and result to suicide bombing(Sookhdeo).

Without a doubt, the most common question asked about suicide bombers is that “why won’t they escape the moment they are alone?”. What usually happens beforehand is that whatever organization they are with will force them to make a video with no mask and the logo of the organization. This video will include no one else besides the bomber themselves so if they decide to escape, the organization will release the video and no one will believe the person when they name names because of the video that was released (“The Motivations of Suicide Bombers”). Lately worldwide there has been a dramatic increase in female suicide bombers which tends to cause more tension for countries such as Palestine. This is because there are always lots of suicide bombings going on in countries such as Palestine, but when female suicide bombings started to occur, it became very unsuspecting, causing lots of shock in the people of Palestine (Gozani).

As a result, at a Matza restaurant, a suicide bomber blew himself up causing fatal injuries to 30 people and death of at least 16 (Gozani). This might seem like a low number of deaths and injuries, but death or injury should not occur in the first place. Even though suicide bombings are horrific and should never occur, they do tend to bring people together as a community to address the serious problem that has been killing thousands of people around the world. Suicide bombings tend to cause fear in the eyes of all types of people, but especially the ones who live in areas in which they occur, because there is a high chance they might be affected by it either through they being murdered in one or someone very close to them like a family member. These fears increase to the extent to which you can consider it paranoia. You never know how much more terrible it will get in the future, because of suicide bombings are definitely not decreasing, but instead are increasing drastically, meaning more deaths and more injuries overall.

In conclusion, suicide bombers are a dangerous threat that should not be taken lightly, due to how much destruction they can cause and how easily they can be influenced or controlled. They have been causing disturbances since they first began with the Tamil Tigers in 1983 to now, with many more organizations that each cause immense damage. The Tamil Tigers are a dangerous group as they alone made Sri Lanka, their base, one of the most, if not the most, suicide bombed areas in the world. There are many motivations suicide bombers have, for instance, they feel as if no one else is doing something about a major issue and they feel it is up to them to do something about it, hence the sacrifice themselves. As the suicide bomber usually has one set of beliefs as to why they are sacrificing themselves, the organization that is supporting and providing for them has an ulterior motive, which will benefit the organization, but not a suicide bomber. The organization will make sure nothing can be used against them, for example, if the suicide bomber tries to back out and not go through with the bombing the suicide bombers will release a video filmed earlier by the organization, but about the suicide bomber confessing to everything so the organization can use that as a bargaining chip if they back out. Even if the suicide bomber tries to snitch no one will believe them, because the police will arrest the man or woman for threatening the country and why would you believe a guy who was going to murder a lot of innocent people. The effect of all of this in the future will be horrible, because all suicide bombings will continue and as they do they will increase as well, meaning more destruction for the future, unless there is something mankind can do about it.