Suicide mission
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A suicide mission is a task which is so dangerous for the people involved that they are not expected to survive. The term is sometimes extended to include suicide attacks such as kamikaze and suicide bombings, whose perpetrators actively die by suicide during the execution of the mission.[1][2]
Military and wartime
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In a military context, soldiers can be ordered to perform very dangerous tasks or can undertake them on their initiative. For example, in the First World War, French soldiers mutinied en masse in 1917, after appalling losses convinced them that their participation at the front would inevitably lead to their deaths,[citation needed] and in October 2004, during the Iraq War, 19 soldiers in the US Army refused orders to drive unarmored fuel trucks near Baghdad, calling the task a "suicide mission". Those soldiers faced investigations for breakdown of discipline.[3]
Suicide missions can also be an act of desperation, such as a last stand, or to save lives. The latter end of the Battle of Stalingrad could be seen as a suicide mission from the German perspective, as they were ordered to fight to the death with no option of surrendering nor the chance of escape.[citation needed]
Special forces
[edit]Special forces units are often sent on missions that are exceedingly dangerous with the hope that their superior training and abilities will allow them to complete them successfully and survive. An example is a desperate attempt by two U.S. Delta Force snipers to protect a downed helicopter pilot (Michael Durant) from being killed or captured by masses of Somali militia during the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993. While the sniper team held off overwhelming numbers of Somalis long enough for the pilot to survive, both snipers were killed, and the pilot was eventually captured but then later released.[citation needed]
However, even special forces groups refuse to participate in some missions. Operation Mikado, a plan for a Special Air Service raid on Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego, during the 1982 Falklands War, was ultimately not executed due in part to significant hostility from members of the SAS, who saw the mission as exceedingly risky.[citation needed]
Self-sacrifice to prevent other casualties
[edit]Sometimes suicide is unplanned. During the 2006 Lebanon War, Major Roi Klein and his unit took part in the Battle of Bint Jbeil. During a Hezbollah ambush, a hand grenade was thrown over the wall that was between Hezbollah militants and Klein and his unit. Klein jumped on the live grenade and muffled the explosion with his body. The soldiers reported that Klein recited the Jewish prayer, Shema Yisrael, as he jumped on the grenade. After the grenade exploded and critically wounded him, he reported his own death, yelling "Klein's dead, Klein's dead" over the radio. In the following minutes, as he lay dying, he ordered soldiers who came to administer first aid and evacuate him to focus on Lieutenant Amichai Merhavia, another soldier who had been hit (and later died also) instead. He then handed over his encoded radio to another officer, who took command of the force, and died.[4][5][6][7][8] According to The Telegraph he yelled "Long live Israel",[9] although this was probably a misinterpretation of "Shema Yisrael" (שמע ישראל).[10]
Preventing capture
[edit]Other than as a way to cause enemy casualties, another situation in which some militaries and related bodies (such as intelligence agencies) encourage their own members to commit suicide is too avoid being captured by the enemy. The concept also often includes the use of intentional friendly fire.[11] Either to avoid disclose of military secrets, avoid the need for a prisoner exchange, or for more intangible ideological motives.[12] Individuals are encouraged by a perception that capture is a fate worse than death, and the likelihood of torture is strongly emphasised in internal propaganda. Sometimes, to the point that even civilians embrace the concept of dying (or killing people on their own side) to avoid capture.[13]
The militaries of nation states often avoid equipping their troops with any means specifically designed to facilitate suicide, but sometimes imply that soldiers are obliged to resort to extreme measures to avoid capture including taking their own lives, or killing their comrades, with whatever means are available.[14] Hand grenades have been repeatedly used or suggested.[15][14]
In 1952, three Chinese soldiers reportedly killed themselves with hand grenades to avoid capture.[15][additional citation(s) needed]
Sicarii in the First Jewish–Roman War
[edit]The Sicarii Jewish sect are sometimes described as carrying out "suicidal" attacks against their enemies. Riaz Hassan said that the first-century AD Jewish Sicarii sect carried out "suicidal missions to kill" Hellenized Jews they considered immoral collaborators.[12] However, they are more known for having committed mass suicide, and family murders, to avoid capture during the Siege of Masada.[16] The story of Masada is prominent in Israeli culture.[16]
17th century Dutch in China
[edit]In the late 17th century, Qing official Yu Yonghe recorded that injured Dutch soldiers fighting against Koxinga's forces for control of Taiwan in 1661 would use gunpowder to blow up both themselves and their opponents rather than be taken prisoner.[17] However, Yu may have confused such suicidal tactics with the standard Dutch military practice of undermining and blowing up overrun positions, which almost cost Koxinga his life during the Siege of Fort Zeelandia.[18]
Individuals given suicide plans to prevent capture
[edit]- Jack Nissenthall, he survived his mission against the Nazis in WWII, but the plan was for him to kill himself or be killed if he was at risk of capture.
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Armed hostage takings
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Armed hostage takings, particularly those planned (e.g., by a terrorist group) for political purposes, could be considered suicide missions. As most governments have a policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists,[citation needed] such incidents usually end with a bloody confrontation between the hostage-takers and an armed force (e.g., police or military) attempting to free the hostages.[citation needed] Also, such hostage-takings often occur in a country foreign to the perpetrators, thereby limiting their chances of escape. Notable examples include the 1972 Munich massacre (after which the hostage takers and collaborators were systematically exterminated in an operation called "Wrath of God" Hebrew: מבצע זעם האל), the 1977 Landshut hijacking, the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege, the 1996 Japanese embassy hostage crisis, and the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis. All of these high-profile hostage-takings ended with the hostage-takers being engaged by the military forces of the country in which the incident occurred, with the vast majority of the hostage-takers being killed in the aftermath..[citation needed]
Suicide protests
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Romas Kalanta was a 19-year-old Lithuanian student who self-immolated in 1972 to protest against the Soviet regime in Lithuania, sparking the 1972 unrest in Lithuania; another 13 people self-immolated in that same year.[19][additional citation(s) needed]
Hunger strikes
[edit]Hunger strikes are another use of self harm, and actual or potential suicide, that is used by some militant groups.[examples needed]
See also
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- Forlorn hope – Military trope
- Friedrich Glasl's model of conflict escalation – Model that assists in the analysis of conflicts
- Green Light Teams – American special forces tasked with nuclear deployment behind enemy lines
- Gallipoli campaign – Military campaign during World War I
- Hannibal Directive – Controversial Israeli military protocol
- Kaiten – Japanese manned suicide torpedoes used by the Imperial Navy in World War II
- Kamikaze – 1944–1945 Japanese suicidal aircraft attacks
- Last stand – Situation in which a military unit holds against overwhelming odds
- Samson Option – Israel's deterrence strategy of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons
- Samson Unit
- Seppuku – Form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment, also known as Harakiri
- Suicide attack – Violent tactic resulting in the attacker's intentional death
In fiction
[edit]- Suicide Mission - the final level of Mass Effect 2
- Suicide Squad - a fictional espionage group in DC Comics who are sent on suicide missions
References
[edit]- ^ "British man on 'suicide mission' in attempted restaurant attack". Monsters and Critics. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 6 March 2022.
- ^ "Girl, 8, kills Iraqi officer in suicide mission". Daily Telegraph. UK. Archived from the original on 17 May 2008.
- ^ "Doubts about US morale in Iraq as troops refuse 'suicide mission'". The Guardian. 16 October 2004.
- ^ Israel Ha'yom.
- ^ Lubotzky, Asael (2016). From the Wilderness and Lebanon. Koren Publishers Jerusalem. pp. 56–57. ISBN 978-1-59264-417-9.
- ^ Lazaroff, Tovah; Dan Izenberg (17 July 2009). "Family of Golani hero may lose home". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 22 February 2012.
- ^ Meotti, Giulio (2010). A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism. Encounter Books. p. 386. ISBN 978-1-59403-477-0.
- ^ Katz, Yossi (2010). A Voice Called: Stories of Jewish Heroism. Gefen Publishing House. p. 193. ISBN 978-965-229-480-7.
Roi Klein.
- ^ Butcher, Tom (9 August 2007). "Israel honours bravery of armed forces". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 22 February 2012.
- ^ https://www.makorrishon.co.il/nrg/online/1/ART1/619/039.html
- ^ דרור פויר (26 January 2009). תמות נפשי עם פלישתים [My soul will die with the Philistines]. Globes (newspaper) www.globes.co.il. שבצה"ל החמירו את נוהל "חניבעל" והנחו את החיילים למנוע בכל מחיר מקרה של "גלעד שליט 2". כלומר: אם אתה חייל ומנסים לחטוף אותך, עליך להתנגד. לא הולך? עליך להתאבד ולקחת כמה שיותר לוחמי חמאס אתך (מג"ד מגולני ממליץ על שימוש ברימון אישי…) … אם זהו הלך המחשבה, למה שלא יקחו את נוהל "חניבעל" וישדרגו אותו עוד קצת ויהפכו אותו לנוהל "שמשון"? למה לחכות שיבואו חוטפים כשאפשר לקחת את החיילים ולשלוח אותם ישר להתאבד, בבחינת תמות נפשי עם פלשתים, ולסגור עניין.
- ^ a b Hassan, Riaz (2011). Suicide Bombings. Taylor & Francis. p. 8. ISBN 978-1-136-80452-6. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
Quote: "Members of these sects numbered in the hundreds and, starting around AD 48, carried out suicidal missions to kill prominent Jews, temple priests who had succumbed to Hellenistic culture and Roman soldiers … Zealots and Sicarii continued their attacks for a quarter of a century, provoking brutal Roman retaliatory reprisals … The Jewish War finally ended at Masada. When the Roman army attacked this fortress at the end of AD 72, there were 960 insurgents and refugees within. Once the fall of the fortress became inevitable, Eleazar, the leader of the Zealots, persuaded Masada's defenders to engage in what remains one of the most famous group suicides in history. The Zealots in Masada preferred to die by their own hand rather than be captured by their Roman enemies. The symbolic act demonstrated their steadfast opposition to Roman oppression. The act of mass suicide was a political act."- Citing (Rapoport 1984: 670): "… To generate a mass uprising, they escalated the struggle by shock tactics to manipulate fear, outrage, sympathy and guilt. Sometimes these emotional effects were provoked by terrorist atrocities which went beyond the consensual norms governing violence; at other times, they were produced by provoking the enemy into committing atrocities against his will."
- Citing (Pape 2005: 34): "… to be able to die nobly and freely… Only our shared death is able to protect our wives and children from violation and slavery … We, who have been brought up at home in this way, should set an example to others in our readiness to die… This suicide is commanded by our laws. Our wives and children ask for it. God himself has sent us the necessity for it."
- ^ "Australian man feared he'd have to do the unimaginable if Hamas found his children". SBS News. 13 October 2023.
(Anthony lived) … with his Israeli-Australian wife and their three children aged under four lived in Kibbutz Be-eri … he thought he would have to make an impossible decision if Hamas fighters found them. "The only thing going through my mind was, 'If they come in here, I'm going to have to kill my kids myself'," Anthony said … "I didn't want my kids to become prisoners, so I thought I was going to have to kill my kids." Scores of Israelis and others were taken to Gaza as hostages…
- ^ a b "תמות נפשי עם פלישתים". Globes (newspaper). 26 January 2009. Archived from the original on 12 March 2025.
- ^ a b "Death Before Capture". West Australian. 2 January 1952. Archived from the original on 4 June 2025.
Three Chinese soldiers blew them selves to pieces with gren ades to escape capture by Allied troops who surround ed their platoon near Kum song on the Korean central front on New Year's Eve. The Chinese clasped grenades to their stomachs and pulled the pins before they could be captured.
- ^ a b Rinon 2024.
- ^ Yu, Yonghe (2004). Macabe Keliher (ed.). Small Sea Travel Diaries. SMC Publishing Inc. p. 196. ISBN 978-957-638-629-9.
- ^ Campbell, William (1903). Formosa under the Dutch: Described from Contemporary Records. Kegan Paul. p. 452. LCCN 04007338. OCLC 66707733. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
- ^ Anušauskas, Arvydas. "KGB reakcija į 1972 m. įvykius". Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
External links
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