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.
Sociology of terrorism
Terrorists use violence because they believe that if they did not use violence they would lose a power struggle, which lead many conflict theorists to view it as a weapon of the weak. In Iraq, between March 2003 and February 2006, 443 suicide missions took place with 71% belonging to al-Qaeda. They justified their actions in religious terms; viewing the Shi'a control of Iraq as abandoning religious principles. Suicide attacks against the Iraqi regime and its American and British supporters were seen as the means in which to accomplish this. Yet it was only under certain political conditions that suicide bombings spiked. The first condition being that it was in relation with the counterinsurgency of the American and British militaries. The second being a strategic response to the Shi'a control becoming more stabilized in Iraq. Terrorists do not have the money or the political power that is needed to wage war, so they use terrorism as a means, not a goal, to agitate the government in order to achieve their political objectives. Before committing an act of terror, a terrorist does not always weigh the cost and benefits of their actions, but rather is reacting from the humiliation and frustration they feel they are being subjected too.