Tactics of terrorism
Suicide terrorism is the most aggressive form of terrorism, pursuing coercion even at the expense of losing support among terrorists' own community. What distinguishes a suicide terrorist is that the attacker does not expect to survive a mission and often employs a method of attack that requires the attacker's death in order to succeed (such as planting a car bomb, wearing a suicide vest, or ramming an airplane into a building). In essence, a suicide terrorist kills others at the same time that he kills himself. Usually these tactics are used for a demonstrative purposes or to targeted assassinations. In most cases though, they target to kill a large number of people. Thus, while coercion is an element in all terrorism, coercion is the paramount objective of suicide terrorism.
United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee
The leaders also resolved to conclude work on the draft comprehensive convention on international terrorism, including a legal definition of terrorist acts, during the sixtieth session of the General Assembly. This achievement would mark the culmination of years of negotiation and debate on various proposals, including those contained in Secretary-General Kofi Annan's report, “In Larger Freedom.” In this document, he called urgently for the adoption of a definition of terrorism similar to that contained in the report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, which states “that the targeting and deliberate killing of civilians and non-combatants cannot be justified or legitimized by any cause or grievance, and that any action intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants, when the purpose of such an act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population or to compel a government or an international organization to carry out or to abstain from any act cannot be justified on any grounds and constitutes an act of terrorism.”