Word: tactic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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What explains the appeal of suicide attacks in Iraq? For one thing, using oneself as a weapon can be a relatively effective tactic against an enemy with far superior firepower. And extremist Muslim suicide bombers believe that their sacrifice guarantees them "martyrdom" and a passport to paradise. (That said, suicide attacks aren't unique to Islamist insurgencies. Sri Lanka's mostly Hindu Tamil Tigers have probably conducted more such attacks than any other single group...
Robert Pape, author of a book about suicide terrorism, Dying to Win, says the tactic has historically been used when two conditions are met: first, insurgents feel they are fighting foreign troops in places they regard as their homeland (Osama bin Laden, for example, has railed against U.S. bases in the Arabian Peninsula); and second, when the occupiers come from a different religious background, insurgents are able to paint them as subjugators of their faith and its followers. Those conditions, it turns out, co-exist prominently in the Muslim world today, particularly in the Middle East. --With reporting by Aparisim...
...sundry groups arrayed against her: retired military men, loyalists of her predecessor Joseph Estrada (whose overthrow in a People Power demonstration in 2001 gave Arroyo the presidency), leftist organizations rallying the aggrieved poor in regular protests that denounce the government as pro-rich. But street demos are just one tactic to topple Arroyo. The strategy?according to foes of Arroyo as well as palace insiders?is to first discredit the 58-year-old former economics professor in order to turn popular opinion against her. The Senate is investigating allegations that Arroyo's husband, son and brother-in-law were involved...
...with his revolver tucked into the dashboard. Linked by deep, zigzag trenches, Gon Kha's bunkers look down upon a handful of fortified U.W.S.A. positions, the closest about 500 meters away. Around 800 U.W.S.A. soldiers charged up Gon Kha's steep, unforested flanks, sometimes in broad daylight?a suicidal tactic even for the battle-hardened Wa. Yawd Serk claims that some were drugged?a search of U.W.S.A. bodies, he says, revealed pills of methamphetamine, a powerful narcotic generally known by the Thai name yaba (crazy medicine). Others were simply too young to know better. "Some of their soldiers must have...
...attacked in the first part of Game 22. The next day a rapt Leningrad audience watched as officials revealed the move Kasparov had decided on before adjournment the previous evening: a knight's assault on the king. The crowd rose and cheered as they realized that the tactic almost certainly guaranteed victory. The last two games were draws, making the final score 12½-11½. Last week after the 23rd game, when Karpov's defeat had become inevitable, the two men shook hands and chatted briefly. It was the first public show of warmth between them in their two long...