De konflikter som finns idag skiljer sig markant från dem som står att läsa om i historieböckerna. Det är numera ovanligt med stater som krigar mot varandra. Istället är det de små organisationerna med ambition om att förändra världen som idag utgör det största hotet mot vårt samhälle. Fienden är annorlunda men i många fall används fortfarande samma militära medel och strategi idag som i de mellanstatliga krigen. Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att undersöka till vilken grad strategiskt bombflyg kan användas i COIN-operationer eller om det är ett militärt medel som endast är applicerbart på mellanstatliga konflikter. Detta avser jag uppnå genom att först undersöka vad som är unikt för en insurgency, sedan vilka förmågor som det strategiska bombflyget har och till sist koppla detta till en känd teoretisk modell om det strategiska bombflyget i konventionell krigföring. Resultatet visar att det är mycket svårt att använda strategiskt bombflyg i COIN-operationer på etteffektivt sätt. Terrorist- och rebellorganisationer skiljer sig markant från hur stater är uppbygda och fungerar. De strategiska målen är färre och dessutom mycket svåra att definera och komma åt. Dessa små organisationer är rörliga och smälter in i den omgivning de opererar i. För att strategiskt bombflyg skall vara effektivt måste det finnas ett brett och uppdaterat informationsunderlag och antalet civila offer måste hållas till ett minimum. / The conflicts of today differ markedly from those which are depicted in history books. It is now rare that states wage war with each other. Instead, it is the small organizations with ambitions to change the world which today constitute the biggest threat to our society. The enemy is different but in many cases the military forces and strategy used in inter-state wars remain the same. The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent strategic bombers can be used in COIN operations, or if they are a military instrument only applicable on intergovernmental conflicts. This I intend to achieve by first examining what is unique about an insurgency, then what abilities the strategic bomber aircraft possess and eventually connect it to a known theoretical model of the use of strategic bomber aircraft in conventional warfare. The result shows that it is very difficult to use strategic bombers in COIN operations in an effective way. A terrorist or insurgent organization is markedly different from the way states are built-up and functioning. The strategic targets are fewer, and very difficult to define and access. These small organizations are mobile and blend in with the environment they operate in. For Strategic bombers to be effective there must be a broad and updated information base and the number of civiliancasualties must be kept to a minimum.

There is currently a knowledge gap in terrorism research and in peace and conflict studiesregarding whether international news media use gender normative language when reporting onfemale and male suicide bombers in three different Islamic terrorism contexts. The contexts areAl-Qaeda, the Islamic State and Boko Haram. This thesis aims to highlight how internationalnews media use a language that reinforces gender norms through their portrayal of female andmale suicide bombers in the three mentioned Islamic terrorist contexts. Therefore, this thesisaims to analyze and compare a limited number of news media articles. To achieve the purposeof the study, a discourse analysis combined with a feminist post-structuralist theoreticalframework via Gentry and Sjoberg's (2015) narratives “mother, monster, and whore”, has beenused as a lens to examine the language use of news media. The study shows that the languageused by international news media reinforces gender norms and creates power relations betweenwomen and men who commit suicide bombing. Furthermore, these results may have policyimplications in terms of suboptimal efforts to combat Islamic terrorist efforts by women.

This thesis intends to revise and update devoted actor theory (DAT) by introducing a neglected dataset—female suicide bombers. DAT provides one such theoretical framework for understanding extremist group behavior and, to a lesser extent, suicidal bombing. DAT is largely satisfying: its claims and conclusions address relevant issues and provide compelling answers to critical questions. However, it is not without its analytical and empirical gaps. Crucially, DAT does not explicitly account for the narratives and characteristic motives of female suicide bombers—which often differ in logic, content, and tone from those of their male counterparts. In addition, DAT assumes that people who are fused with extreme groups are willing to self-sacrifice for their group, but the theory does not account for how this fusion process transpires. Therefore, I propose two amendments to DAT that not only address theoretical issues, which arise partially from the lack of female terrorist accounts, but also creates a narrative that bridges the gap that would explain how an individual progresses from bonding to a group to making the decision to die for it. Accordingly, I also propose to theorize a psychosocial process that links the way in which individuals, specifically females, become fused to a group and edge closer to the most extreme of extremist decisions: to annihilate their bodies and selves, while at the same time annihilating or wreaking havoc upon the lives of others whom they have deemed enemies of themselves or their group.

This thesis explores the impact of Western military interventions on the occurrence and motivations of female suicide bombers in Iraq, by utilizing a single case study method combined with Structured, Focused Comparison. The thesis examined the period before-and-after the 2003 U.S-led invasion of Iraq. The reserach identifies a significant increase in the use of female suicide bombers post-intervention, correlating this rise with intensified grievances, personal loss, and cases of sexual exploitation and abuse. The research analyzes the strategic, social and individual logics influencing these motivations. Findings suggest that Western military interventions exacerbate conditions leading to the radicalization and mobilization of women as suicide bombers, driven by a combination of personal trauma, societal pressure, and strategic aims to coerce foreign powers.

The aim of the master thesis is to identify factors on which a motivation of individual, rather terrorist organization is based for committing of suicide attacks as a social phenomenon, that appears to be a priori incomprehensible in the context of European culture setting. The secondary aim of the thesis is to distinguish an eventual difference of motivation between female suicide attackers and male suicide attackers. For these purposes, two terrorist organizations have been analysed within two separately designed case studies, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and Hamas for those the suicide attacks have represented the real "modus operandi" and simultaneously engaged women to their suicide missions. These terrorist organizations have been systematically analysed in terms of cultural, political, economic and organizational and social-psychological factors. The levels of analysis used, represent a synthetized reflection of existing theoretic treatment of suicide terrorism issue. The resulting findings confirm, first of all, the fact, that suicide terrorism phenomenon constitutes considerably complicated social phenomenon, whose central motive appears to be political, more precisely nationalistic. However its strength and effectiveness are largely interconnected with other motives, both cultural,...

This thesis describes and evaluates the successes and failures of the use of strategic bombers through the abilities of one heavy bombardment group, the 389th. It examines the different missions that determined the effectiveness of the Group. When employed in a strategic bombing role, the 389th contributed significantly to the destruction of the German war industries and transportation system. When used as a tactical bomber, a mission for which it had neither proper training nor equipment, the 389th was generally a failure.

From 2002 to 2006, ten Palestinian women committed suicide attacks against Israeli civilians and military personnel, resulting in more fatalities and wounded noncombatants on average than attacks by male perpetrators. Rather than examining individual women’s motivations to become a suicide bomber, this research endeavor seeks to shift focus from this prevailing analytical approach to a sociological analysis of how militant organizations frame female participation to the public. Social movement perspectives and an extension of Erving Goffman’s work on frame analysis theoretically inform an examination of media produced by the two non-secular militant organizations of Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad. Organizations attempt to mitigate the “broken frame” introduced by female incorporation into an overwhelmingly male enterprise by strategically creating new frames that exalt and reinterpret extant social norms. Organizations frame female perpetrators as un-feminine individuals prior to their actions but, through the act of martyrdom, frame them as feminized symbols of the threat posed to Palestinian society, and its gender order, by Israeli military presence in the occupied territories. Martyrdom is framed, physically and symbolically, as a transformative experience. An application of frame analysis to violent social movements offers researchers the opportunity to understand how groups attempt to garner support and advance their interests within their populations and abroad. / text