A/HRC/4/26 page 19 68. A distinction can be made between internal and external use of suicide bombings. Internally, suicide bombings may be used as means for the perpetrators to actively seek a political solution in their own country or region. Typical examples are Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. External terrorism by means of suicide attacks comprises attacks in which the perpetrators act outside of their home territories, such as the massive attacks of 11 September 2001. External suicide terrorism attempts to change dominant power relationships in the world and - ultimately - to change the world order. 69. Suicide bombings also often occur in the context of armed conflict. Historical examples of warfare using suicide attacks as a method were the Japanese kamikaze bombers at the end of the Second World War, and more recently Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers.50 Many Palestinian bombers consider Palestine as a country which is forced to exist in circumstances amounting to a war; they describe their actions as military defence.51 However, the Special Rapporteur again emphasizes that what turns a suicide attack into terrorism, even during an armed conflict, is the targeting of civilians as victims. 70. Hence, the Special Rapporteur notes that suicide bombings take place in a number of political and religious settings. However, the role of religion, and particularly of Islam, in suicide bombings has been the subject of much attention in recent years. Some researchers have pointed out that Islamic suicide bombers argue that their ideology and actions are based on religion. Looking more carefully at the individual cases gives evidence that a typical terrorist organization resorting to suicide attacks is rather nourished by national liberation ideologies of the nineteenth century than by any Islamic tradition.52 Irrespective of the justification for the suicide attacks, their ideologies, symbolism, language and organizational structures resemble the anti-colonial struggles.53 71. Some studies link the support for and acceptance of suicide bombings clearly with political Islamism.54 According to this research, the greater the commitment to the Islamist 50 Joseph Croituru, Der Märtyrer als Waffe, Frankfurt a.M.: dtv, 2003. 51 Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The global rise of religious violence, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000. See also Raid Sabbah, Der Tod ist ein Geschenk - Die Geschichte eines Selbstmordattentäters, München, Dromer, 2002. 52 Anne Marie Oliver and Paul Steinberg, The Road to Martyrs’ Square: A journey into the world of the suicide bomber, Oxford University Press, 2005. 53 Mali Soibelman, “Palestinian suicide bombers”, in Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, No. 1/2004. 54 Simon Haddad, “A comparative study of Lebanese and Palestinian perception of suicide bombing: The role of militant Islam and socio-economic status”, in International Journal of Comparative Sociology, vol. 45 (5), pp. 337-363.