TY - JOUR
T1 - Suicide bombing as a strategic weapon
T2 - An empirical investigation of Hamas and Islamic Jihad
AU - Gupta, Dipak K.
AU - Mundra, Kusum
N1 - Funding Information:
The research for this study was partially funded by the United States Institute of Peace. The authors are grateful to a number of colleagues and friends. However, our intellectual debt runs particularly deep to Professor Ariel Merari for sharing his data as well as his comments on the earlier version of this paper. We are also grateful to David Rapoport, Mia Bloom, Farid Abdel-Nour, and Ronald King.
PY - 2005/12
Y1 - 2005/12
N2 - Using twice-yearly data from 1991 to 2003, we analyze the incidents of suicide attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad within Israel and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Given the exploratory nature of the question, we have first estimated the relevant coefficients by using a Quasi-Maximum Likelihood Ratio and then checked their robustness by reestimating the model with the help of a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) as an interrelated system. The results indicate that the two groups deliberately use suicide bombings as strategic weapons within the larger Israeli-Palestinian political milieu. With the Western world locked in an armed struggle with the militant extremists of Islam based on millenarian ideologies, this study emphasizes the need to develop appropriate analytical capabilities to distinguish among terrorist groups and their motivations, ideologies, and tactics.
AB - Using twice-yearly data from 1991 to 2003, we analyze the incidents of suicide attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad within Israel and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Given the exploratory nature of the question, we have first estimated the relevant coefficients by using a Quasi-Maximum Likelihood Ratio and then checked their robustness by reestimating the model with the help of a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) as an interrelated system. The results indicate that the two groups deliberately use suicide bombings as strategic weapons within the larger Israeli-Palestinian political milieu. With the Western world locked in an armed struggle with the militant extremists of Islam based on millenarian ideologies, this study emphasizes the need to develop appropriate analytical capabilities to distinguish among terrorist groups and their motivations, ideologies, and tactics.
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U2 - 10.1080/09546550500189895
DO - 10.1080/09546550500189895
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:31744443773
VL - 17
SP - 573
EP - 598
JO - Terrorism and Political Violence
JF - Terrorism and Political Violence
SN - 0954-6553
IS - 4
ER -