Suicide attack

Four coordinated suicide attacks targeted the United States on September 11, 2001 (commonly known as 9/11)

Kamikaze pilots, aged 17, with a puppy

A suicide attack is an attack where the attacker (either one person or a group of people) plans on killing people and/or destroying property while also dying in the process. In a suicide attack, the attacker dies as a result of the attack, for example in an explosion or a crash.

Nowadays, suicide attacks are often done with a vehicle or an explosive material such as a bomb (a suicide bombing), or sometimes both (i.e. a car filled with explosives). If everything goes according to plan, the attacker is killed as soon as their attack is complete (when their vehicle crashes or their bomb detonates).

Suicide attacks are often done in a crowded place so that as many people as possible are killed. They are common in the Middle East and South Asia. Most attacks on Israel, carried out by Hamas or other Palestinian militant groups are suicide bombings. The kamikaze were suicide attacks by Japanese pilots during World War II.

Suicide Attack Media

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  The number of suicide attacks grew enormously after 2000.

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  Chinese suicide bomber putting on 24 hand grenade-explosive vest prior to attack on Japanese tanks at the Battle of Taierzhuang.

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  A Japanese Mitsubishi Zero's suicide attack on the USS Missouri (BB-63), April 11, 1945.

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  Kamikaze pilot about to miss crash diving into escort carrier USS White Plains (CVE-66).

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  The U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in the aftermath of August 7, 1998, Al-Qaeda suicide bombing

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  Scene after a Palestinian suicide bombing in 1995

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  The result of a car bombing in Iraq

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  Afghanistan suicide bomb attacks, including non-detonated, 2002–2008

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  A female US Air Force officer playing the role of a suicide bomber during an exercise, 2011