Özet:

Pashtuns have been known as specialists of guerrilla warfare. Use of suicide bombers against their opponent has never been a part of Pashtuns’ strategy. However, ever since the Americans have stepped into Afghanistan in 2001, there has been an extensive employment of suicide bombers by the Taliban against the American forces. The Pashtuns’ aggressive suicide strategy has proved extremely successful at least on these three counts: firstly, preventing the world’s lone superpower from achieving its strategic objectives in Afghanistan; secondly, forcing the US to the negotiating table with the Taliban; and thirdly, following in the footsteps of previous invaders, forced to withdraw from Afghanistan. The situation also agitates the researchers’ minds to inquire as to why Pashtuns opted to use suicide bombing as a military operation in the Afghan conflict in the post-2001 era? The main argument of this research is that in their struggles against foreign invaders, Pashtuns have always adopted different strategies in accordance with the ground realities, and the use of suicide bombers since 2001 has been part of this historic trend. In this research, secondary sources have been used for data collection whereas theoretical lens of Pape theory of suicide terrorism has been employed in testing the hypothesis.

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