There’s No Place Like Home! Examining the Diffusion of Suicide Attacks Through Terrorist Group Locations

Suicide attacks have been widely used by many terrorist groups since the 1980s. It cannot be ignored that Al-Qaeda has played a role in diffusing this tactic, in particular among groups that have links with Al-Qaeda. However, the decision to adopt an innovative tactic is not without risk. Its implementation may inspire potential supporters, but may also cause a backlash from government and alienation from those whose support the group may be seeking. Thus, in their decision-making, it is crucial that terrorist groups learn the repercussions of their decision to adopt such tactics. In so doing, examination of the success or otherwise of other groups that adopt an innovation and its results can provide evidence for the predictability of their decision. This research argues that terrorist groups tend to learn and be influenced more by nearby groups due to the similarity of their environment of operation. The estimation is conducted through the logit model with the original terrorist group location dataset and the findings indicate that the influence of an Al-Qaeda link in adopting the tactics of suicide attack is larger when they are geographically close.