Thread 64145811

How effective is suicide bombing actually as a military tactic? It worked for the Tamil tigers until it kind of didn't, and it helped stall the Iraqi army/coalition in Mosul/Raqqa but it seems like a waste of manpower unless it's very well targeted.

Chud joined ISIS?

>>64145811 (OP)
>it seems like a waste of manpower unless it's very well targeted.

Suicide bombers during the Iraq War were usually

>losers (jobless, unmarried, and terminally online young men, basically the Islamic world's equivalent of /pol/ users)
>mentally ill (not in the Bill Maher "all religious people are mentally ill lol" way, the "actual-fucking-diagnosable-schizophrenics" way)
>literal retards
>children ("put on this vest and go get candy from those soldiers")
>women who had shamed themselves in some way (usually involving adultery)
>random smugglers who thought they were carrying drugs in their car and not a bomb

...or in other words, people who were regarded as expendable.

>>64145811 (OP)
>it seems like a waste of manpower unless it's very well targeted.

Suicide bombers during the Iraq War and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts were usually

>losers (jobless, unmarried, and terminally online young men, basically the Islamic world's equivalent of /pol/ users)
>semi-losers (married men with children who were jobless and looking to secure their family's financial future, Hezbollah in particular was known for using big cash payouts as a recruiting tactic)
>mentally ill (not in the Bill Maher "all religious people are mentally ill lol" way, the "actual-fucking-diagnosable-schizophrenics" way)
>literal retards
>children ("put on this vest and go get candy from those soldiers")
>women who had shamed themselves in some way (usually involving adultery)
>random smugglers who thought they were carrying drugs in their car and not a bomb

...or in other words, people who were regarded as expendable.

>>64145842
They switched to using their own soldiers in SVBIEDs when the conflict went full scale. Apparently they sent 30(!!) Suicide car bombers to take Mosul. I guess the math must check out in sending 30 fighters to a certain death vs potential deaths during a ground offensive

Suicide bombers could only - ONLY - work as assassination tools.
A single person can potentially be way more accurate than any artillery or rocket or drone.
Obviously you'd need a way to bring that person close to the target, and that is where the problem lies.

>One human can carry at most one suicide vest and kill himself with him
>One human can also carry multiple drones with cable and multiple warheads
>You can also make drones automatic to some extent
I think unless you are charging an enemy trench eith explosive and you are gonna die anyway.
Its dumb

>>64145866
Suicide bombing works as an asymmetric warfare tactic too. All it took was one ISIS dude with a vest to kill 13 US soldiers and like 150 Afghans during the Kabul evacuation. They KNEW there was a suicide bombing threat too. You just cant check everyone for a vest.

Its like Kamikaze attacks, your plane was shoot and will explode, might as well take some americans with you.
If you can comeback and bring more bombs, idk why you wanna become the bomb yourself.

>>64145877
>your plane was shoot and will explode
Most kamikaze planes launched with the intent of being kamikazes

>>64145879
I know,
Thts why i compared it to kamikazes.
Exploding yourself like that was retarded.
Take for example the attack of the deadman.
You have been gassed and will die anyway.
Might as well do an heroic charge since atleast you will take the enemy with you

>>64145859
Yeah, but there is a difference beetwen expendable and wasteful.
Sending them to explode next to some civilians is for sure wasteful

>>64145912
Terrorism works.

>>64145815
The IS might as well stand for Incel Squad, so he'd be a natural fit

>>64145866
It's also psychological warfare
For one, it blurs the line between civilians and combatants. Every soldier is now paranoid and on edge because every civilian wearing even slightly baggy clothes is now a potential bomber. The constant hyper-vigilance is very draining
And do you know how demoralizing it must be to the average soldier to be forced to ventilate a 6yo kid? Especially when he has kids of his own waiting for him at home. And when he has to do it multiple times

>>64145811 (OP)
What if they just kamikaze'd at Battle of the Corsal Seas and Midway?
Don't think Yorktown would have gotten away in the Battle of the Coral Seas. And Hornet would certainly be taken out during the Battle of Midway.

>>64145870
You're lacking in imagination, when you shouldn't. There are ways to multiply the effects of anything if you're willing to die.

>>64145811 (OP)
I think the humble suicide bomber is going to be one of the least mourned casualties of the drone era

>>64145870
There's no reason YOU have to be the person wearing the vest, the taliban had great success equipping children with vests and sending them to ask coalition soldiers for treats
the trick is to not tell the kid what the vest is

>>64145811 (OP)
About the only real merit is that it does have an effect, how positive it is really depends were you have the bomb go off and who gets hit. Especially with forces that are heavily reliant on some kind of public support for food, money, shelter, recruits and intelligence. So if they blow up too many of the locals, that can literally 'blow up in their faces' with no support and they get a no-knock in the middle of the night by some guys.
It is also a fairly desperate action
You are telegraphing that alternatives like not dying and expending troops like this is something you really only do when there's no alternatives and you're kind of fucked. They can spin it however they want about being hero of the state or martyrdom but the result is more or less someone going sky high because there wasn't another way to do it. However, a lot of these forces don't really have any training, actual experienced and EFFECTIVE combat troops are often in really short supply. Plenty of goobers want to do the gangsta shit but they're ultimately bumbling, useless cunts that fall into the left side of the bell curve for success at anything. Which does make them easy to recruit I guess, blow yourself up and get some virgins you incel cunt or everyone will love you and we'll (totally not) look after your family if you go do this one simple thing...
Hell, some of them will do it for $50 and a clean set of clothes!

No one actually useful gets sent into these things as >>64145859 mentions, none of the shot callers and people who can shoot straight get this kind of job. It's all the dumb dumbs, druggies, washouts and general human detritus that washes up on your shore that gets convinced that this is the way and gets the job

>>64145811 (OP)
Now that drones are in regular use, suicide bombings are are probably more useful for manipulating morale than actually doing damage. It's also a waste of manpower even if they're only sending their most useless to akhbar themselves.

>>64146660
Back when ISIS was still important their VBIED drivers selection apparently centered mostly around the guys who were a little too into the cause and the guys they suspicious about.

>>64145859
>>64146660
Not really. You're projecting. "Suicide bombers" volunteer for the job. Many specifically want to do that, especially back in the 2000s.

Even the sons of Taliban leaders have volunteered for PBIED attacks.

Women who "shamed" themselves and random smugglers aren't used for the job, at least not by Jihadist groups. The only group that used manipulation to carry out PBIED attacks was JASDJ under Abu Bakr Shekau.

>>64148046
>Women who "shamed" themselves and random smugglers aren't used for the job, at least not by Jihadist groups.
>Abhorrent as such images might seem, the story behind them is even more wrenching. Aired on a TV channel run by the Islamic militants of Hamas, the two-minute re-enactment was based on the life of Reem Riyashi, 22, a Palestinian mother of two who blew herself up in a suicide attack against Israeli soldiers at a Gaza border crossing in January 2004. Riyashi is hailed as a courageous resistance fighter among Palestinians throughout Gaza and the West Bank, but the truth about what drove her to such a terrible act is much more complex. Palestinians in Gaza and Israeli internal-security experts who studied the background of her case say Riyashi’s husband had discovered that she was having an affair with a senior Hamas commander. Among conservative Palestinians, as in other parts of the Islamic world, an adulterous woman is often punished with death. Riyashi was given a second option: she could become a martyr. In a video statement released hours before her death, Riyashi, garbed in a militaristic uniform and holding a semiautomatic rifle, sounds tough. “I have always wished to knock at the door of heaven carrying skulls belonging to the sons of Zion,” she says. But the pained expression on her chubby, homely face conveys considerably more ambivalence about the idea of annihilating herself to kill Israelis and restore her family’s “honor.”

https://time.com/archive/6680932/palestinian-moms-becoming-martyrs/

>>64146867
This sort of stuff could make for a really good dark comedy
>I'm pretty sure Ahmed is a fed. Put him in the bomb truck

>>64145866
kamikaze attacks

>>64148215
>chubby, homely face
That was uncalled for

>>64145861
>Apparently they sent 30(!!) Suicide car bombers to take Mosul. I guess the math must check out in sending 30 fighters to a certain death vs potential deaths during a ground offensive
Those could be really powerful truck bombs, like the equivalent of a really powerful precision-guided bomb. Like imagine several dozen Timothy McVeighs hitting a fortified position in an urban area. They could do that to totally pulverize a position.

>>64145811 (OP)
>How effective is suicide bombing actually as a military tactic?
Terrorism more generally is designed to introduce chaos into stable systems. It's like how people like pop music more than jazz because it's predictable progression. Introduce a lot of noise, the music stops making sense and people get nervous. It's designed to create tension in targeted populations. There's a scene from the Battle of Algiers that I thought illustrates this well because it includes music:
https://youtu.be/XReG51HbqtU

There's research literature on the efficacy of terrorism tactics. The gist, as I recall it, is that moderate, government-directed violence tends to work best. It keeps the public onside and mitigates organizational damage by constraining military retaliation. VBIEDs at checkpoints are kinda the energetic optimum, as far as low-hanging fruit goes. You're likely to do some damage and unlikely to involve very many civilians or to provoke a massive response.

>>64145861
Anyone remember what these guys were called? There was a mosul suicide bomber unit that used color symbolism in its name. Red, I think.

>>64145912
Exploding the civilians was the goal. It destabilizes the government, damages the economy, kills people who aren't like you.

>>64149119
The ISIS-type like to go into places where there's some ethnic / religious conflict, pick the weaker side, and then blow up civilians in the stronger side, which results in civilians in the weaker side being targeted for retaliation and they don't like that so therefore = more ISIS. It's like a parasite feeding on diseased tissue or accelerationism or a "strategy of tension." They in fact lost and got driven out of Iraq by the U.S. military, and then came back, and were driven out again.

>>64148046
Everything he says is backed up by more than 25 years of studies on suicide bombers and captured terrorists. I can even link them if you want I have them saved on my PC.

>>64148436
You ever watched 4 Lions?

>>64145912
>>64149119
>>64149172

Al Qaeda's propaganda chief, Abu Bakr Naji, wrote an entire book called Management of Savagery detailing the strategy behind suicide bombing and terrorism.

per the wikipedia summary because I'm not going to risk getting myself put on the No-Fly List to pull actual quotes.

>In stage one ("vexation and empowerment") the "will of the enemy" would be broken by destruction of "vital economic and strategic targets". In Muslim-majority countries these would include "oil facilities and the tourism infrastructure". A campaign of constant violent attacks (vexation operations) in Muslim states will eventually exhaust their ability and will to enforce their authority. Concentrating security forces to protect these sensitive targets will cause the state to weaken and its powers wither, leading to a breakdown of public order, since "if regular armies concentrate in one place they lose control. Conversely, if they spread out, they lose effectiveness". Salafi-jihadists will take advantage of this security vacuum, launching an all-out battle on the thinly dispersed security forces leading to the destruction of the state targeted by the jihadis. Extreme violence is emphasized.
>In stage two is the "administration of savagery" (Idarat al-Tawhush). In the wake of the breakdown in order, the law of the jungle will prevail and survivors will "accept any organization, regardless of whether it is made up of good or evil people." Jihadists can take advantage of this savagery to win popular support, or at least acquiescence, Jihadis will be the organization—enforcing sharia and providing basic services of security, food and medicine. The areas they control will serve as bases to attack other states that have not yet been overthrown, to "plunder their money, and place them in a constant state of apprehension".
>In the third and final stage, ("empowerment", Shawkat al-Tamkeen). The area or areas they administer become the nucleus of a new caliphate.

>>64149200
>A week after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, comedian and political commentator Bill Maher said Mohammed Atta and his fellow conspirators were not cowards for their actions
>“We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly,” Mr. Maher said on his show “Politically Incorrect,” then on ABC
>Though he does not address the incident with Maher in his new book, The Myth of Martyrdom, Adam Lankford would assuredly disagree with Maher’s contention that Atta – or any suicide bomber – is somehow brave
>“Stunningly, considering his importance, Atta has been fundamentally misunderstood for more than a decade...,” Lankford writes. “[The] psychological autopsy has revealed that Atta’s struggles with social isolation, depression, guilt and shame, and hopelessness were very similar to the struggles of those who commit conventional suicide and murder-suicide.”
>With the exception of workplace shooters, who are not often suicidal themselves, Lankford says that the other three groups are typified by people who are “driven to suicide for the same reasons any civilian might be – anxiety, depression, marital problems, professional failure”
>Lankford argues that, because many of them fear the spiritual consequences of killing themselves outright, they mask their desire to die beneath a foggy veneer of heroic action
>“The desire to acquire fame and glory through killing, and then escape the consequence, is a critical similarity between certain suicide bombers, rampage shooters, and school shooters,” he says.
>“[Our leaders] need to stop claiming that suicide terrorists are the psychological equivalent of America’s Navy SEALs,” Lankford writes. “They glorify suicide terrorism and help the cult of martyrdom grow”

https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2013/0218/The-Myth-of-Martyrdom

>>64149200
>You ever watched 4 Lions?
Now I'll have to

>>64148046
they usually volunteer
but most of them do because they're losers with nothing to lose or feel they must redeem themselves in their backwards religion
so yeah that's right
and as for children
there is a fairly known video of a 14 year old attempted suicide bomber in israel who was paid 100 shekels to do it(roughly 20 bucks-adjusted for inflation 40 bucks)

>>64145811 (OP)
Completely outmodded by drones.

>>64146586
I wonder if eventually the separation between civilian and combatant will fall by the wayside the way nobility pretty much died by the end of the 20th century: you either surrender to the opposing force on-sight, uniformed or not, or are considered a component of your country's war machine.
The UN has thus far proved virtually useless in enforcing the separation anyways.

>>64145859
Don't jihadis get told they'll go to paradise?

>>64149055
Yeah it was Red Zinji

>>64145912
>blow up a waste of space in a crowded market
>everyone freaks out
>people refuse to go to the markets
>people are going broke due to no one going to the markets to buy from them
>have to set up security checkpoint all around your markets to make people feel safe enough to go back to the markets
congrats that one waste of space is now tying up hundreds of enemy combatants and you now have hundreds of enemy combatants in regular, close contact with civilians. so now the next waste of space can be sent in to bomb a market and hey if he does get caught, that's half a dozen combatants killed

>>64156508
Outside of the Capitol or major cities this doesn't happen
Its why the same cities in Afghanistan/iraq/wherever got hit all the time

>>64156479
Can't find shit using this to search. ree

>>64159728
when there are only half a dozen real places, those are where the attacks happen

>>64156508
Lets if i can explain it in 40k terms:
>Fighting space marines
>Their terminators just teleported in
>About to charge my Artillery team
>Send in my kriegers in a suicide charge to stall them so i can then point my heavy guns on them
This is use of expendable resources
>Fighting orks
>They are holding an objective
>Send in my kriegers on a suicide charge just because i hate orks
This is wastefull

>>64145811 (OP)
FPV drones sort of put the idea of suicide bombing to bed don't it? Why bother blowing yourself up when you can do it with a plastic proxy over and over?

>>64164057
Depends what you've got and how much damage you need doing. That's sort of were the drone's tend to fall off when it comes to carrying in a big load of explosives, they're cheap on the scale of being little FPVs with a warhead on them- but if your problem is an airfield or barracks with a division of enemy troops then you need something a bit bigger like a cement mixer full of anfo or the average car bomb with 3-500kg of high ex and other junk in it.
Plus there's no up-skill needed
Got to remember not everything is ideal were you have an industrialised nation and educated people who can solder stuff up, make aero-kits in enough numbers or even fly a drone- then not leave a paper trail of purchasers to the big rock candy mountain drone store which leads right back to your sekret ninja hideout. So when you're poor, your friends are fucking morons and something needs to be done with the kind of bang that people notice, its still the retard in a vest or a car bomb that works, he can't be jammed, he looks like every other dumb cunt on the street and even with most things going right they'll probably at least succeed in blowing up. Maybe were and what you intended even!

>>64148441
Jews wrote it.

>>64146626
this was not a suicide bomber, this was the work of sneaky art students

>>64145811 (OP)
I don't know. Try it and get back to us.

>>64145870
problem is that even the simplest drones require more training and equipment than a suicide bomber

>>64148046
The vietcong were known for using kids as suicide bombers. Its why the us has a policy about running over kids that get in the way of their convoys

Suicide bombing is just resource maximization when your have an excess of inbreds and retardation is rampant in your society. Plenty of first hand accounts of suicide bombings indicate that the bombers appeared to be children or adults tards. You're definitely not relying on those people to be coordinated and effective in a fire fight.

>>64145912
Exploding some civis scared the US so badly they gave up their rights for 3 decades and counting

>>64167225
You need at least a bomb/vest maker and a propagandist for every suicide bomber though

>>64171066
Any 80iq retard can make a suicide vest in a place where UXO detonators and shrapnel are sold at the local bazaar

>>64171066
yeah but those stay covert and safely tucked away at least for the moment

when you go out with a drone team you put them in risk of getting caught when a suicide bomber goes out ideally the enemy doesn't get anything to trace you back or at least nothing inmediate

>>64171779
how does that relate to training overhead

>>64171157
Detonators are usually made from scratch

>>64156471

Christians and Jews also get told they'll go to paradise when they die, I don't see any lining up to become suicide bombers.