Abstract

Today, terrorism is a world-wide problem. In particular, after 9/11, its impacts to global security and democracy have become the main issue. New strategies and methods to fight terrorism have been developed and brought into focus. Terrorism has been a major concern in Turkey for over 30 years. Turkey has lost more than 30,000 people in its fight against terrorism. During this time, however, much experience in counter-terrorism and in understanding of the nature of terrorism has been gained.

It is clear that the aim of terrorism is to spread violence, panic, and fear among people. In order to achieve this, the terrorists use various methods and tools. In this context, suicide attacks might be seen as the most sensational and destructive tool of terrorism.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of the suicide attacks in Turkey from a multi-dimensional perspective. The paper presents a brief history of suicide attacks, and uses the Turkish case to illustrate the background to the development and use of suicide attacks. This is followed by suggestions on measures designed to prevent this type of attack.

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