An
Assassination is the targeted
killingKilling is the act of causing something to die.Animals kill each other primarily for food.The killing of humans by humans is called homicide.The killing of livestock is called slaughter.The killing of wild animals for profit, pleasure, or food, is called hunting....
of a
public figurePublic figure is a legal term applied in the context of defamation actions as well as invasion of privacy. A public figure cannot base a lawsuit on incorrect harmful statements unless there is proof that the writer or publisher acted with malice...
.
Assassinations may be prompted by
ideologicalAn ideology is a set of aims and ideas that directs one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a...
,
politicalPolitics is a process by which groups of people make decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic and religious institutions...
, or
militaryA military is an organization authorized by its nation to use force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. As an adjective the term "military" is also used to refer to any property or aspect of a military...
reasons. Additionally, assassins may be motivated by
financial gainContract killing is a form of assassination in which one entity hires another entity to kill a target individual or group of people. It involves an illegal agreement between two parties in which one party agrees to kill the target in exchange for some kind of remuneration, monetary or otherwise...
,
revengeRevenge is a harmful action against a person or group as a response to a grievance. Although many aspects of revenge resemble the concept of justice, revenge connotes a more injurious and punitive focus as opposed to a harmonious and restorative one...
,
personal public recognitionA celebrity is a person who is famously recognized in a society or culture.Generally speaking, a celebrity is someone who gets media attention and most frequently has an extroverted personality. The desire to be notable is implied by some to be a part of Western culture and more specifically the...
, or mental illness.
Assassination (or
targeted killing) may refer to the government-sanctioned killing of opponents or to targeted attacks on high-profile enemy combatants.
In figurative language usage, the word "assassination" may also be used in colloquial speech as a
hyperboleHyperbole is a figure of speech in which statements are exaggerated. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally....
, as in the phrase "
character assassinationCharacter assassination is an attempt to tarnish a person's reputation. It may involve exaggeration or manipulation of facts to present an untrue picture of the targeted person...
", meaning an attempt to impugn another's character, and thus kill ("assassinate") his reputation and credibility.
Etymology
The term 'Assassin' derives from the Arabic word
HashshashinThe Hashshashin from which the word assassin is thought to originate, was the Arabic designation of the Nizari branch of the Ismā'īlī Shia Muslims during the Middle Ages...
, literally "takers of hashish", more commonly called The Order of the Assassins. Their actual name is Nizari. They were active in the costal mountains of the Levant, then moved to
AlamutAlamūt was once a mountain fortress located in the central Alborz Mountains south of the Caspian Sea close to Gazor Khan near Qazvin Province, about 100 km from present-day Tehran in Iran. Only ruins remain of this fortress today.-Origins:Alamut lies on the peak known as Alah Amut...
by the
Caspian SeaThe Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. It has a surface area of 371,000 square kilometres and a volume of 78,200 cubic kilometres...
from the eighth to the fourteenth centuries. This group killed members of the
AbbasidThe Abbasid Caliphate was the third of the Islamic Caliphates of the Islamic Empire. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphs from all but Al Andalus....
and
SeljuqThe Seljuq were a Turco-Persian Sunni Muslim dynasty that ruled parts of Central Asia and the Middle East from the 11th to 14th centuries...
élite for political and religious reasons, but mostly targeted the Sunni Muslims.
An Assassination is the act of killing someone for money. This can be called Contract Killing
It is commonly believed that assassins were under the influence of
hashishHashish is a preparation of cannabis composed of the compressed stalked resin glands called trichomes, collected from the cannabis plant. It contains the same active ingredients but in higher concentrations than other parts of the plant such as the buds or the leaves...
and
opiumOpium is a narcotic formed from the latex released by lacerating the immature seed pods of opium poppies . It contains up to 12% morphine, an opiate alkaloid, which is most frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade...
during their killings or during their indoctrination, and that
assassin derives from
hasishin. There is continued debate within the historical community whether these claims have any merit, as direct evidence from any contemporary source, Nizari or otherwise, is non-existent.
Marco PoloMarco Polo was a merchant from the Venetian Republic who wrote Il Milione, which introduced Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, voyaged through Asia and met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to meet Marco for...
and subsequent European visitors to the area received from rivals of the Nizarai, what were to these opponents, derogatory names for the Nizarai Ismaili, and significantly embroidered stories about them. Polo, Henry II, Count of Champagne,
William MarsdenWilliam Marsden was an English orientalist, linguist, numismatist and pioneer in the scientific study of Indonesia.-Early life:...
, an envoy of Frederick Barbarossa, William, Archbishop of Tyre and others following, popularized the names and stories in Europe, oblivious to their origin in factional propaganda.
The earliest known literary use of the term "assassination" is in
The Tragedy of Macbeth by
William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
(1605).
Definition problem
The definition of "assassination" varies among sources.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines "to assassinate" thus:
- ... to murder
Murder, as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent , and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
[a prominent person] by surprise attack, as for political reasons;
however, the
Oxford English DictionaryThe Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press , is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language...
's definition is:
- The action of assassinating; the taking the life of any one by treacherous violence, esp. by a hired emissary, or one who has taken upon him to execute the deed.
There is dispute whether the term assassination should include killings wherein the primary motivation is attracting attention to a political cause, and wherein the victim is of secondary importance (and might be famous, but unrelated to the dispute, or even an unknown). This leads to a number of possible definitions - which may however not all apply in any specific case:
- the killing of someone by treacherous
Betrayal is the breaking or violation of a presumptive social contract, trust, or confidence that produces moral and psychological conflict within a relationship amongst individuals, between organizations or between individuals and organizations...
violence
- the killing of someone in the public view (i.e. someone notable)
- the killing of someone for political, moral, or ideological reasons
For the purposes of this article, the third definition predominates, even though the second is often used, and the first would often be found in colloquial use.
Ancient to medieval times
Assassination is one of the oldest tools of
power politicsPower politics, or Machtpolitik , is a state of international relations in which sovereigns protect their own interests by threatening one another with military, economic, or political aggression...
, dating back at least as far as recorded history. Perhaps the earliest recorded instance is the murder around 586 BC of
GedaliahAccording to the Hebrew Bible, Gedaliah - the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan served briefly as governor of Judah...
, described by
JeremiahJeremiah was one of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. His writings are put together in the Book of Jeremiah and traditionally, authorship of the Book of Lamentations is ascribed to him...
and lamented by
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
s to this day in the Fast of Gedaliah.
Philip II of MacedonPhilip II of Macedon, Philip II of Macedon, Philip II of Macedon, ( — φίλος = friend + ίππος = horse — transliterated 382 – 336 BC, was an ancient Greek king (basileus) of Macedon from 359 BC until his assassination in 336. He was the father of Alexander the Great and Philip...
, the father of
Alexander the GreatAlexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
, and
Julius CaesarGaius Julius Caesar , , was a Roman military and political leader. He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
are famous victims. Emperors of Rome often met their end in this way, as did many of the Shia Imams. The practice was also well-known in
ancient ChinaChinese civilization originated in various city-states along the Yellow River valley in the Neolithic era. The written history of China begins with the Shang Dynasty . Turtle shells with ancient Chinese writing from the Shang Dynasty have been carbon dated to as early as 1500 BCE...
. An example of this is
Jing KeJing Ke was a guest residing in the estates of Dan, crown prince of Yan and renowned for his failed assassination of the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang who reigned from 221 BC to 210 BC...
's failed assassination of
Qin Shi HuangQin Shi Huang , personal name Ying Zheng , was king of the Chinese State of Qin from 246 BCE to 221 BCE during the Warring States Period. He became the first emperor of a unified China in 221 BCE. He ruled until his death in 210 BCE at the age of 50.Qin Shi Huang remains a controversial figure in...
. The
ancient IndianThe known history of India - the name in this context includes the areas now known as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh - begins with the Indus Valley Civilization, which spread and flourished in the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent, from c. 3300 to 1300 BCE. Its Mature Harappan period...
military adviser
ChanakyaChanakya was an adviser and a prime minister to the first Maurya Emperor Chandragupta , and was the chief architect of his rise to power. Kautilya and Vishnugupta, the names by which the ancient Indian political treatise called the Arthaśāstra identifies its author, are traditionally identified...
wrote about assassinations in detail in his political treatise
ArthashastraThe Arthashastra is an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy which identifies its author by the names Kautilya and , who are traditionally identified with The Arthashastra (IAST: Arthaśāstra) is an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy and...
. In 1192 (28th of April) Conrad of Montferrat was assassinated by two hashishin.
The apocryphal Old Testament story of Judith illustrates how a woman frees the Israelites by tricking and assassinating
HolofernesHolofernes was an Assyrian invading general of Nebuchadnezzar, who appears in the deuterocanonical Book of Judith. It was said that the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar dispatched Holofernes to take vengeance on the nations of the west that had withheld their assistance to his reign...
, a war-lord of the rival Assyrians with whom the Israelites were at war.
In the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
,
regicideThe broad definition of regicide is the deliberate killing of a monarch, or the person responsible for the killing of a monarch. In a narrower sense, in the British tradition, it refers to the judicial execution of a king after alleged due process of law....
was rare, but with the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
,
tyrannicideTyrannicide literally means the killing of a tyrant. Typically, the term is taken to mean the killing or assassination of tyrants for the common good. The term "tyrannicide" does not apply to tyrants killed in battle or killed by an enemy in an armed conflict...
—or assassination for personal or political reasons—became more common again. The reigns of French kings
Henry IIIHenry III of France , was King of France from 1574 to 1589, and as Henry of Valois, first elected Monarch of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the dual titles of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1573 to 1575.-Early years:Henry was born at the Royal Château de...
and
Henry IV,Henry IV was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France. His parents were Queen Jeanne III and King Antoine of Navarre.As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the Wars of Religion before...
and
William the SilentWilliam I, Prince of Orange , also widely known as William the Silent , or simply William of Orange , was the main leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish that set off the Eighty Years' War and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1648. He was born into the House...
of the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
ended with assassination.
In modern history
As the world moved into the modern day, the killing of important people began to become more than a tool in power struggles between rulers themselves, and was also used for political symbolism, such as in the
propaganda of the deedPropaganda of the deed is a concept that promotes physical violence against political enemies as a way of inspiring the masses and catalyzing revolution. Propaganda of the deed may take many forms, but in many cases utilizes violence against people seen as threats to the working class...
. In Russia alone, four emperors were assassinated within less than 200 years:
Ivan VIIvan VI Antonovich of Russia , , was Emperor of Russia 1740 - 1741. He was born in Saint Petersburg to Prince Antony Ulrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg and duchess Anna Leopoldovna of Mecklenburg, niece of Empress Anna of Russia and grand-daughter of Tsar Ivan V.-Tsar of Russia:His grand-aunt Empress...
,
Peter IIIPeter III was Emperor of Russia for six months in 1762. According to most historians, he was mentally immature and very pro-Prussian, which made him an unpopular leader. He was supposedly assassinated as a result of a conspiracy led by his wife, who succeeded him to the throne as Catherine...
,
Paul IPaul was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801.-Childhood:Paul was born in the Palace of Empress Elisabeth in St Petersburg. He was the son of Elizabeth's heir, her nephew, the Grand Duke Peter, later Emperor Peter III, and his wife, the Grand Duchess Catherine, later Empress Catherine II...
, and
Alexander IIAlexander II Nikolaevich , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor, or Czar, of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...
.
In the
U.S.The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, four presidents,
Abraham LincolnThe assassination of Abraham Lincoln, one of the last major events in the American Civil War, took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, when President Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre with his wife and two guests.Lincoln's assassin,...
,
James GarfieldJames A. Garfield was shot in Washington, DC on July 2, 1881 by Charles J. Guiteau at 9:30 a.m., less than four months after taking office as the twentieth President of the United States. Garfield died eleven weeks later on September 19, 1881, the second of four Presidents to be assassinated,...
,
William McKinleyThe William McKinley assassination occurred on September 6, 1901, at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York. United States President William McKinley, attending the Pan-American Exposition, was shot twice by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist....
, and
John F. KennedyThe assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time in Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was fatally shot while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a Presidential motorcade...
died at the hands of assassins. There have been at least
20 known attempts on US presidents' lives.
In
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by
SerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a country located in both Central and Southeastern Europe. Its territory covers the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and central part of the Balkans...
n nationalist
insurgentAn insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognised as belligerents.[Oxford English Dictionary second edition 1989 "insurgent B. n...]
s (
The Black HandBlack Hand , officially Unification or Death , was a secret society founded in the Kingdom of Serbia on May 9, 1911. It was a part of the Pan-Slavist movement, with the intention of uniting all of the territories containing South Slav populations annexed by Austria-Hungary...
) is blamed for igniting
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
after a succession of minor conflicts, while belligerents on both sides in
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
used operatives specifically trained for assassination.
Reinhard HeydrichReinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was an SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
was killed by
Czech partisanOperation Anthropoid was the code name for the assassination of top German SS leader Reinhard Heydrich. He was the chief of the Reich Main Security Office , the acting Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, and a chief planner of the Final Solution, the Nazi German programme for the genocide of the Jews...
killers, and knowledge from decoded transmissions allowed the U.S. to carry out
a targeted attackOperation Vengeance was carried out to kill Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto on April 18, 1943, during the Solomon Islands campaign in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was killed on Bougainville Island when his...
, killing
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese
AdmiralAdmiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above Vice Admiral and below Admiral of the Fleet/Fleet Admiral. It is usually abbreviated to "Adm." or "ADM"...
Isoroku YamamotoNaval Marshal General was the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II, a graduate of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy and a student of the U.S...
while he was travelling by airplane.
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
, meanwhile, was almost
killed by his own officersThe 20 July plot of 1944 was a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, inside his "Wolf's Lair" field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. The plot was the culmination of the efforts of the German Resistance to overthrow the Nazi regime...
, and survived various attempts by other persons and organizations (such as
Operation FoxleyOperation Foxley was a 1944 plan to assassinate Adolf Hitler, created by the British Special Operations Executive . Although detailed preparations were made, the plan was not carried out...
, though this plan was never put into practice).
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
's "Father of the Nation," Mohandas K. Gandhi, was shot to death on January 30, 1948 by
Nathuram GodseNathuram Vinayak Godse is best known for being the man who assassinated Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi.-Early life:...
.
Cold War and beyond
During the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
, there was a dramatic new increase in the number of political assassinations, likely due to the
ideologicalAn ideology is a set of aims and ideas that directs one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a...
polarization of most of the
FirstThe terms First World, Second World, and Third World were used to divide nations into three broad categories. The three terms did not arise simultaneously. After World War II, people began to speak of the NATO and Warsaw Pact countries as two major blocs, often using such terms as the "Western...
and
Second worldThe "Second World" is a phrase that was used to describe the Communist states within the Soviet Union's sphere of influence. A construct of the Cold War, along with "First World" and "Third World", the term was used to divide the nations of Earth into three broad categories—the capitalist...
s, whose adherents were often more than willing to both justify and finance such killings.
Liaquat Ali Khan, the first
Prime MinisterA prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. The position is usually held by, but need not always be held by, a politician. In many systems, the prime minister selects and can dismiss other members of the cabinet, and...
of
PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located at the crossroads of South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia...
was assassinated by
Saad AkbarSaad Akbar Babrak , an Afghan of Pashtun ethnicity, assassinated the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaqat Ali Khan. Akbar belonged to the same Zadran tribe as Pacha Khan Zadran....
, a lone assassin in 1951. Conspiracy theorists believe his conflict with certain members of the Pakistani military (Rawalpindi conspiracy) or suppression of Communists and antagonism towards the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, were potential reasons for his assassination.
The U.S. Senate Select Committee chaired by Senator
Frank ChurchFrank Forrester Church III was a United States Senator from Idaho, serving four terms from 1957 to 1981. Church was a member of the Idaho Democratic Party.-Early life:...
(the
Church CommitteeThe Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church in 1975. A precursor to the U.S...
) reported in 1975 that it had found "concrete evidence of at least eight plots involving the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro from 1960 to 1965."
Most major powers were not long in repudiating Cold War assassination tactics, though many allege that this was merely a smokescreen for political benefit and that covert and illegal training of assassins continues today, with
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
,
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
, USA,
ArgentinaArgentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico,...
,
ParaguayParaguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay , is one of the two landlocked countries which lie entirely within the Western Hemisphere, the other being Bolivia, both in South America....
,
ChileChile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
and other nations accused of still regularly engaging in such operations. In 1986, U.S. President
Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California .Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s...
(who survived an assassination attempt himself) ordered the
Operation El Dorado CanyonThe United States bombing of Libya comprised the joint United States Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps air-strikes against Libya on April 15, 1986.-Origins:...
air raid on
LibyaLibya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa...
in which one of the primary targets was the home residence of Libyan ruler
Muammar GaddafiMuammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi
1 has been the de facto leader of Libya since a coup in 1969....
. Gaddafi escaped unharmed; however, his adopted daughter Hanna was one of the civilian casualties.
In the
PhilippinesThe Philippines officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
, the assassination of
Benigno Aquino, Jr.Benigno Servillano "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr. was a Philippine Senator, Governor of Tarlac, and an opposition leader against President Ferdinand Marcos. He was assassinated at the Manila International Airport upon returning home from exile in the United States...
triggered the eventual downfall of the 20-year autocratic rule of
PresidentThe President of the Philippines is the head of state and government of the Republic of the Philippines. The President of the Philippines in Filipino is referred to as Ang Pangulo or Pangulo...
Ferdinand MarcosFerdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos was President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He was a lawyer, member of the Philippine House of Representatives and a member of the Philippine Senate . He was Senate President in 1963...
. Aquino, a former
SenatorThe Senate of the Philippines is the upper chamber of the bicameral legislature of the Philippines, the Congress of the Philippines...
and a leading figure of the political opposition, was assassinated in 1983 at the
ManilaThe City of Manila , or simply Manila or Maynila, is the capital of the Philippines and one of the 17 cities and municipalities that make up Metro Manila. It is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay, on the western portion of the National Capital Region, in the western side of Luzon...
International AirportAn international airport is an airport typically equipped with customs and immigration facilities to handle international flights to and from other countries. Such airports are usually larger, and often feature longer runways and facilities to accommodate the large aircraft commonly used for...
(now the
Ninoy Aquino International AirportThe Ninoy Aquino International Airport or NAIA , is the airport serving the general area of Manila and its surrounding metropolitan area...
) upon returning home from
exileExile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened by prison or death upon return...
. His death thrust his widow,
Corazon AquinoMaria Corazon "Cory" Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino was the 11th President of the Philippines and the first woman to hold that office. Aquino was also the first elected female head of state in Asia...
, into the limelight and, ultimately, the presidency following the peaceful
1986 EDSA RevolutionThe People Power Revolution was a series of nonviolent and prayerful mass street demonstrations in the Philippines that occurred in 1986. It was the inspiration for subsequent non-violent demonstrations around the world including those that ended communist rule in Eastern Europe...
.
After the
Iranian RevolutionThe Iranian Revolution of 1979 or 1979 Islamic Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution...
of 1979, the new Islamic government of Iran began an international campaign of assassination that lasted into the 1990s. At least 162 killings in 19 different countries have been linked to the senior leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This campaign came to an end after the
Mykonos restaurant assassinationsIn the Mykonos restaurant assassinations of 17 September 1992, Iranian-Kurdish opposition leaders Sadegh Sharafkandi, Fattah Abdoli, Homayoun Ardalan and their translator Nouri Dehkordi were assassinated at the Mykonos Greek restaurant in Berlin, Germany....
, because a German court publicly implicated senior members of the government and issued arrest warrants for
Ali FallahianHojatoleslam Ali Fallahian, is an Iranian politician and cleric. He has served as a member of the of the 3rd Assembly of Experts of the IRI and as the Minister of Intelligence of Islamic Republic of Iran in cabinet of President Hashemi Rafsanjani...
, the head of the Iranian Intelligence. Evidence indicates that Fallahian’s personal involvement and individual responsibility for the murders were far more pervasive than his current indictment record represents.
On August 17, 1988 President of
PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located at the crossroads of South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia...
Gen. M. Zia ul Haq died along with his staff and the American Ambassador to Pakistan when his C-130 transport plane exploded in mid-air after taking off from
BahawalpurBahawalpur , located in the province of Punjab, is the twelfth largest city in Pakistan. The city was once the capital of the former princely state of Bahawalpur. The city was home to various Nawabs and counted as part of the the Rajputana states...
because of an on-board bomb. The CIA, KGB and Indian secret service RAW all have been implicated by various conspiracy theorists.
Various dictators around the world, such as
Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
, have also used assassination to remove individual opponents, or to terrorize troublesome
populationIn biology, a population is the collection of inter-breeding organisms of a particular species; in sociology, a collection of human beings. Individuals within a population share a factor may be reduced by statistical means, but such a generalization may be too vague to imply anything...
groups. In return, in post-Saddam
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
, the Shiite-dominated government has used death squads to perform countless
extrajudicial executionsExtra-judicial killings are the illegal killing of leading political, trades union, dissidents, and social figures by either the state government, state authorities like the armed forces and police Extra-judicial killings are the illegal killing of leading political, trades union, dissidents, and...
of radical Sunni Iraqis, with some alleging that the death squads were trained by the U.S.
In
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
,
Prime MinistersThe Prime Minister of India is the head of government of the Republic of India, and head of the Council of Ministers, appointed by the President to assist the latter in the administration of the affairs of the executive in India...
Indira GandhiIndira Priyadarshini Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi ( Indirā Priyadarśinī Gāndhī; née: Nehru; (19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was the Prime Minister of the Republic of India for three consecutive terms from 1966 to 1977...
and
Rajiv GandhiRajiv Ratna Gandhi , the elder son of Indira Nehru and Feroze Gandhi, was the 7th Prime Minister of India from his mother's death on 31 October 1984 until his resignation on 2 December 1989 following a general election defeat...
(neither of whom were related to Mohandas Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1948), were assassinated in 1984 and 1991. The assassinations were linked to separatist movements in Punjab and northern
Sri LankaSri Lanka , officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka , is an island country in South Asia, located about off the southern coast of India...
, respectively.
In
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
,
Prime MinisterThe Prime Minister of Israel is the head of the Israeli government and the most powerful political figure in Israel . The prime minister is the country's chief executive. The official residence of the prime minister, Beit Rosh Hamemshala is in Jerusalem...
Yitzhak Rabin' was an Israeli politician and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–1977 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995. In 1994, Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize together with Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat...
was assassinated on November 4, 1995.
Yigal AmirYigal Amir is the Israeli assassin of Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin. The assassination took place November 4, 1995 at the conclusion of a rally in Tel Aviv...
confessed and was convicted of the crime.
Many questionsYitzhak Rabin assassination conspiracy theories arose almost immediately following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister, on November 4, 1995. The gunman Yigal Amir, a Jewish Israeli student, was apprehended within seconds by other people in the crowd. Rabin died later on...
were subsequently raised about the actual cause of and rationale for his death.
Israeli tourists minister Rehavam Ze'evi was also assassinated by a Palestinian assassin named Hamdi Quran in 2001
In
LebanonLebanon , officially the Republic of Lebanon
[Republic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies...]
, the assassination of former Prime Minister
Rafik HaririRafik Bahaa El Deen Al-Hariri — , , a self-made billionaire and business tycoon, was the Prime Minister of Lebanon from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 until his resignation, 20 October 2004. He headed five cabinets during his tenure...
on February 14, 2005, prompted an investigation by the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
. The suggestions in the resulting
Mehlis reportThe Mehlis Report is the result of the United Nations' investigation into the 14 February 2005 assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri. The investigation was launched in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1595 and headed by the German judge, Detlev Mehlis...
, that there was
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
n involvement, prompted the
Cedar RevolutionThe Cedar Revolution or Independence Intifada was a chain of demonstrations in Lebanon triggered by the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on February 14, 2005.The primary goals of the original activists were the withdrawal...
which drove Syrian troops out of Lebanon.
In
PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located at the crossroads of South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia...
, former prime minister and opposition leader
Benazir BhuttoBenazir Bhutto was a Pakistani politician who chaired the Pakistan Peoples Party , a centre-left political party in Pakistan. Bhutto was the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state, having twice been Prime Minister of Pakistan . She was Pakistan's first and to date only female prime minister...
was assassinated in 2007, while in the process of running for re-election. Bhutto's assassination drew unanimous condemnation from the international community.
In Guinea Bissau, President
João Bernardo VieiraJoão Bernardo "Nino" Vieira was the President of Guinea-Bissau from 1980 to 1999 and again from 2005 to 2009. After seizing power in 1980, Vieira ruled for 19 years, and he won a multiparty presidential election in 1994. He was ousted at the end of the 1998–1999 civil war and went into exile...
was assassinated in the early hours of Monday 2 March 2009 in the capital,
BissauBissau is the capital city of Guinea-Bissau. The city's borders are conterminous with the Bissau Autonomous Sector. In 2007, the city had an estimated population of 407,424 according to the Instituto Nacional de Estatística e Censos...
. Unlike typical assassinations his death was not swift; first surviving an explosion at the Presidential Villa before being shot and wounded and finally butchered with machetes. His assassination was carried out by renegade soldiers who were apparently revenging the prior assassination of General Tagme Na Waie, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Guinea Bissau, who had been killed in a bomb explosion the day before.
In 2002, the
George W. Bush AdministrationThe Presidency of George W. Bush began on his inauguration on January 20, 2001 as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
prepared a list of "terrorist leaders" the CIA is authorized to assassinate, if capture is impractical and civilian casualties can be kept to an acceptable number. The list includes key al-Qa'ida leaders like
Osama bin LadenOsama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden is a member of the prominent Saudi bin Laden family and one of the founders of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, best known for the September 11 attacks on the United States and its associations with numerous other mass-casualty attacks against...
and his chief deputy,
Ayman al-ZawahiriAyman Muhammad Rabaie al-Zawahiri is a prominent leader of al-Qaeda, and was the second and last "emir" of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, having succeeded Abbud al-Zummar in the latter role when Egyptian authorities sentenced al-Zummar to life imprisonment...
, as well as other principal figures from al-Qa'ida and affiliated groups. This list is called the "high value target list". The US president is not legally required to approve each name added to the list, nor is the CIA required to obtain presidential approval for specific attacks, although the president is kept well informed about operations.
President Obama's CIA Director
Leon PanettaLeon Edward Panetta is the current Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. An American Democratic politician, lawyer, and professor, Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from...
stated that
Special Activities DivisionThe Special Activities Division is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service , responsible for covert action and "special activities". These activities include covert political action and paramilitary operations...
efforts in Pakistan have been "the most effective weapon" against senior al-Qa'ida leadership.
On 14 July 2009, several newspapers reported that CIA director
Leon PanettaLeon Edward Panetta is the current Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. An American Democratic politician, lawyer, and professor, Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from...
was briefed on a CIA program that had not been briefed to the oversight committees in Congress. Panetta cancelled the initiative and reported it to Congress and the President. The program consisted of teams of
Special Activities DivisionThe Special Activities Division is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service , responsible for covert action and "special activities". These activities include covert political action and paramilitary operations...
paramilitary officers organized to execute targeted assassination operations against al-Qa'ida operatives around the world in any country. According to the Los Angeles Times, DCIA Panetta "has not ruled out reviving the program". There is some question as to whether former Vice President Richard Cheney instructed the CIA not to inform Congress. Per senior intelligence officers, this program was an attempt to avoid the civilian casualties that can occur during
PredatorThe MQ-9 Reaper is an unmanned aerial vehicle developed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems for use by the United States Air Force, the United States Navy, and the British Royal Air Force...
drone strikes using
HellfireThe AGM-114 Hellfire is a multi-platform, multi-target United States modular missile system. The name comes from the fact that it was originally intended to be a helicopter-launched fire-and-forget weapon...
missiles.
On July 22, 2009,
National Public RadioNational Public Radio is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to 797 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, signed into law...
reported that U.S. officials believe
Saad bin LadenSa'ad bin Osama bin Muhammad bin 'Awad bin Laden better known as Saad bin Laden, one of the sons of Osama bin Laden, continued in his father's footsteps by occupying a position within Al Qaeda....
, a son of Osama bin Laden, was assassinated by a CIA strike in Pakistan. Saad bin Laden spent years under house arrest in Iran before traveling last year to Pakistan, according to former National Intelligence Director
Mike McConnellMike McConnell is an American talk radio host based in Cincinnati, Ohio.-Radio program:McConnell currently hosts two programs. His weekday show, Midday with Mike, is aired Monday through Friday from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon on WLW in Cincinnati and formerly nationwide on XM Satellite Radio...
. It's believed he was killed sometime this year. A senior U.S. counterterrorism said U.S. intelligence agencies are "80 to 85 percent" certain that Saad bin Laden is dead.
As military doctrine
Assassination for military purposes has long been espoused -
Sun TzuSun Tzu is traditionally believed to have authored The Art of War, an influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy considered to be a prime example of Taoist thinking. Sun has had a significant impact on Chinese and Asian history and culture, both as an author of The Art of War and through...
, writing around 500 BC, argued in favor of using assassination in his book
The Art of WarThe Art of War is a Chinese military treatise that was written by Sun Tzu in the 6th century BC, during the Spring and Autumn period. Composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare, it is said to be the definitive work on military strategies and tactics of its time, and...
. Nearly 2000 years later
MachiavelliNiccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian philosopher, writer, and is considered one of the main founders of modern political science. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, musician, and playwright, but, foremost, he was a civil servant of the Florentine Republic...
also argued assassination could be useful in his book
The PrinceIl Principe is a political treatise by the Florentine public servant and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. Originally called De Principatibus , it was originally written in 1513, but not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death...
. In medieval times, an army and even a nation might be based upon and around a
particularly strong, canny or charismatic leaderA cult of personality arises when a country's leader uses mass media to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are often found in dictatorships and Stalinist governments....
, whose loss could paralyze the ability of both to make war. However, in modern warfare a soldier's mindset is generally considered to surround ideals far more than specific leaders, while command structures are more flexible in replacing officer losses. While the death of a popular or successful leader often has a detrimental effect on morale, the organisational system and the belief in a specific cause is usually strong enough to enable continued warfare.
There is also the risk that the target could be replaced by an even more competent leader or that such a killing (or a failed attempt) will "
martyrA martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce a belief, usually religious.-Meaning:...
" a leader and support his cause (by showing the moral ruthlessness of the assassins). Faced with particularly brilliant leaders, this possibility has in various instances been risked, such as in the attempts to kill the Athenian
AlcibiadesAlcibiades Cleiniou Scambonides , was a prominent Athenian statesman, orator, and general. He was the last famous member of his mother's aristocratic family, the Alcmaeonidae, which fell from prominence after the Peloponnesian War...
during the
Peloponnesian WarThe Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 B.C., was an Ancient Greek war, fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases...
. There are a number of additional examples from
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
which show how assassination was used as a military tool at both tactical and strategic levels:
- The American interception of General Isoroku Yamamoto's
Naval Marshal General was the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II, a graduate of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy and a student of the U.S...
airplane during World War II, after his travel route had been decrypted.
- The American perception that Skorzeny's
Otto Skorzeny was an SS-Obersturmbannführer in the German Waffen-SS during World War II. After fighting on the Eastern Front, he commanded a rescue mission that freed the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from captivity...
commandoThe term commando, in English, means a specific kind of individual soldier or military unit. In contemporary usage, commando usually means élite light infantry and/or special forces units, specialised in amphibious landings, parachuting, rappelling and similar techniques, to conduct and effect...
s were planning to assassinate EisenhowerDwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was a five-star general in the United States Army and the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. During the Second World War, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, with responsibility for planning and supervising the...
during the Battle of the BulgeThe Ardennes Offensive was a major German offensive , launched towards the end of World War II through the forested Ardennes Mountains region of Belgium , France and Luxembourg on the Western Front...
played havoc with Eisenhower's personal plans for some time, though it did not affect the battle itself. Skorzeny later denied in an interview with The New York Times that he had ever intended to assassinate Eisenhower during Operation GreifOperation Greif was a special false flag operation commanded by Waffen-SS commando Otto Skorzeny during the Battle of the Bulge. The operation was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler, and its purpose was to capture one or more of the bridges over the Meuse river before they could be destroyed...
and he said that he could prove it.
- There was a planned British commando raid to capture or kill the German General Erwin Rommel
Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel , was perhaps the most famous German Field Marshal of World War II....
(also known as "The Desert Fox").
Use of assassination has continued in more recent conflicts:
- During the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War or the Second Indochina War was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to 30 April 1975...
, partly in response to Viet Cong assassinations of government leaders, the USAThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
engaged in the Phoenix ProgramThe Phoenix Program was a military, intelligence, and internal security program designed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency and coordinated and executed by Republic of Vietnam's security apparatus and US Special Operations Forces such as the Navy SEALs, United States Army Special...
to assassinate Viet Cong leaders and sympathizers, and killed between 6,000 and 41,000 persons, with official 'targets' of 1,800 per month.
- From 1991 till 2006, Russia targeted the top commanders of the separatist groups they were fighting in Chechenya, killing several of them (including Aslan Maskhadov
Aslan Aliyevich Maskhadov was a leader of the Chechen separatist movement and the third President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.He was credited by many with the Chechen victory in the First Chechen War, which allowed for the...
and Shamil BasayevShamil Salmanovich Basayev was a Chechen militant Islamist and a leader of the Chechen separatist movement....
)
- During World War II, underground factions sympathizing with the Allies
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . The involvement of the Allies in World War II was either natural and inevitable they were invaded or under the direct threat of invasion by the Axis or compelled by concerns that the Axis powers...
were known to assassinate rival underground leaders to ensure their chances of governing their nation upon liberation from the AxisThe Axis powers comprised the countries that were opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—were part of a military alliance on the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, which officially founded the Axis powers...
, as opposed to their rivals. Naturally, the reason given to the assassin would be that the rival leader was an Axis sympathizer.
- In the Global War on Terrorism
The War on Terrorism is the common term for the military, political, legal and ideological conflict against what the effort's leaders describe as Islamic terrorism and Islamic militants, and was specifically used in reference to operations by the...
, American special operations forces and intelligence agencies employed manhuntingManhunting is the deliberate identification, capture or killing of senior or otherwise important enemy combatants, dubbed high-value targets, usually by special operations forces and intelligence organizations...
operations against key opponents and Al Qaeda terrorist leaders.
As tool of insurgents
Insurgent groups have often employed assassination as a tool to further their causes. Assassinations provide several functions for such groups, namely the removal of specific enemies and as propaganda tools to focus the attention of media and politics on their cause.
The
Irish Republican ArmyThe Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...
guerrillas of 1919–1921 assassinated many
RICThe armed Royal Irish Constabulary was Ireland's major police force for most of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police controlled the capital. The cities of Derry and Belfast had special divisions within the RIC. The...
Police Intelligence officers during the
Irish War of IndependenceThe Irish War of Independence was a guerrilla war mounted against the British government in Ireland by the Irish Republican Army . It began in January 1919, following the Irish Republic's declaration of independence, and ended with a truce in July 1921...
.
Michael CollinsMichael Collins was an Irish revolutionary leader, Minister for Finance and MP for Cork South in the First Dáil of 1919, Director of Intelligence for the IRA, and member of the Irish delegation during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations...
set up a special unit - the Squad - for this purpose, which had the effect of intimidating many policemen into resigning from the force. The Squad was headed up by the infamous Bevis Pole. The Squad's activities peaked with the assassination of 14 British agents in
DublinDublin is the largest city and capital of Ireland. It is officially known in Irish as Baile Átha Cliath or Áth Cliath ; the English name comes from the Irish Dubh Linn meaning "black pool". It is located near the midpoint of Ireland's east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey and at the...
on
Bloody SundayBloody Sunday was a day of violence in Dublin on 21 November 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. In total, 31 people were killed – fourteen British, fourteen Irish civilians and three republican prisoners....
in 1920.
This tactic was used again by the Provisional IRA during
the TroublesThe Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...
in
Northern IrelandNorthern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and it is situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
(1969-present). Assassination of
RUCThe Royal Ulster Constabulary GC was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary , the Belfast Borough Police Force and the Londonderry Borough Police Force...
officers and politicians was one of a number of methods used in the Provisional IRA campaign 1969-1997. The IRA also attempted to assassinate British
Prime MinisterA prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. The position is usually held by, but need not always be held by, a politician. In many systems, the prime minister selects and can dismiss other members of the cabinet, and...
Margaret ThatcherMargaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC, FRS served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She is the only woman to have held either post....
by bombing the Conservative Party Conference in a
BrightonBrighton is a town in the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex on the south coast of Great Britain...
hotel.
Loyalist paramilitariesUlster loyalism is a militant unionist ideology held mostly by Protestants in Northern Ireland. Some individuals claim that Ulster loyalists are working-class unionists willing to use violence in order to achieve their aims...
retaliated by killing Catholics at random and assassinating Irish nationalist politicians.
BasqueThe Basques are the native people of the Basque Country .The Basques as an ethnic group primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country, a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-eastern Spain...
terrorists
ETAor ETA , is a terrorist, criminal, Basque nationalist and separatist organization. Founded in 1959, it evolved from a group advocating traditional cultural ways to a paramilitary group with the goal of independence for the greater Basque Country from a Marxist-Leninist perspective.Since 1968, ETA...
in
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
have assassinated many security and political figures since the late 1960s, notably
Luis Carrero BlancoDon Luis Carrero-Blanco, 1st Duke of Carrero-Blanco Grandee of Spain was a Spanish admiral and long-time ally of dictator Francisco Franco.- Biography :...
in 1973. Since the early 1990s, they have also targeted academics, journalists and local politicians who publicly disagreed with them, meaning that many needed armed police bodyguards.
The
Red BrigadesThe Red Brigades were a Marxist-Leninist militant group based in Italy and active, mainly via political assassinations and bank robberies, during the "Years of Lead"....
in
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
carried out assassinations of political figures, as to a lesser extent, did the
Red Army FactionThe Red Army Faction , shortened to RAF and in its early stages commonly known as Baader-Meinhof Group or Gang, was one of postwar West Germany's most violent and prominent groups who advocated communist-inspired terrorism...
in
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
in the 1970s and 1980s.
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
ern groups, such as the PLO and
HezbollahHezbollah is a Shi'a Islamist political and paramilitary organisation based in Lebanon. Hezbollah is now also a major provider of social services, which operate schools, hospitals, and agricultural services for thousands of Lebanese Shiites, and plays a significant force in Lebanese politics...
, have all engaged in assassinations, though the higher intensity of armed conflict in the region compared to western Europe means that many of their actions are either better characterized as guerrilla operations or as random attacks - especially the technique of suicide bombs.
In the
Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War or the Second Indochina War was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to 30 April 1975...
, assassinations were routinely carried out by communist insurgents against government officials and individual civilians deemed to offend or rival the revolutionary movement. Such attacks, along with widespread military activity by insurgent bands, almost brought the
DiemDiem may refer to several different people or phrases:*Ngo Dinh Diem was the leader of the Republic of Vietnam who was assassinated in a military coup in 1963.*Ryan Diem, player in the NFL*Carl Diem, originator of the Olympic torch relay...
regime to collapse before the US intervention.
For money or gain
Individually, too, people have often found reasons to arrange the deaths of others through paid intermediaries. One who kills with no political motive or group loyalty,
only for money, is known as a
hitmanContract killing is a form of assassination in which one entity hires another entity to kill a target individual or group of people. It involves an illegal agreement between two parties in which one party agrees to kill the target in exchange for some kind of remuneration, monetary or otherwise...
, or contract killer. Note that by the definition accepted above, while such a killer is not, strictly speaking, an assassin, if the killing is ordered and financed towards a political end, then that killing must rightly be termed an assassination, and the hitman an assassin by extension.
Entire organizations have sometimes specialized in assassination as one of their services, to be gained for the right price. Besides the original
hashshashinThe Hashshashin from which the word assassin is thought to originate, was the Arabic designation of the Nizari branch of the Ismā'īlī Shia Muslims during the Middle Ages...
, the
ninjaA was a covert agent or mercenary of feudal Japan specializing in unorthodox arts of war. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, assassination, as well as open combat in certain situations. The underhanded tactics of the ninja were contrasted with the samurai, who...
clans of
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
were rumored to perform assassinations, though it can be pointed out that most of what was ever known about the ninja was
rumorA rumor or rumour , is often viewed as "an unverified account or explanation of events circulating from person to person and pertaining to an object, event, or issue in public concern" However, a review of the research on rumor conducted by Pendleton in 1998 found that research across sociology,...
and
hearsayHearsay is information gathered by Person A from Person B concerning some event, condition, or thing of which Person A had no direct experience. When submitted as evidence, such statements are called hearsay evidence. As a legal term, "hearsay" can also have the narrower meaning of the use of such...
.
In the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
,
Murder, Inc.Murder, Inc. — or Murder Incorporated, or the Brownsville Boys — was the name given by the press to organized crime activities in the 1920s, '30s and '40s that resulted in hundreds of murders on behalf of the American mafia. The name "Murder Incorporated" was a journalistic invention...
, an organization partnered to the
MafiaThe Mafia is a Sicilian criminal society which is believed to have emerged in late 19th century Sicily, and the first such society to be referred to as a mafia . It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct...
, was formed for the sole purpose of performing assassinations for organized crime. In
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, the
vory (thieves), Russian organised crime syndicates, are often known to provide assassinations for the right price, as well as engaging in it themselves for their own purposes. A professional hitman is called "cleaner" in Russia; he is used to clean away the target. The Finnish as well as the Swedish underworld uses the word "
torpedoThe modern torpedo is a self-propelled explosive projectile weapon, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater toward a target, and designed to detonate on contact or in proximity to a target...
" for a contract killer.
Targeted killing
Nils Melzer defines targeted killing as "the use of lethal force attributable to a subject of international law with the intent, premeditation and deliberation to kill individually selected persons who are not in the physical custody of those targeting them". The concept and term "targeted killing" has been adopted by a large part of the
legal doctrineLegal doctrine is a framework, set of rules, procedural steps, or test, often established through precedent in the common law, through which judgments can be determined in a given legal case. A doctrine comes about when a judge makes a ruling where a process is outlined and applied, and allows for...
, the media and international organizations such as the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
.
The use of assassinations for political or military reasons by sovereign states is an extremely contentious subject, with opinions ranging from people considering it a legitimate form of defense, especially against non-state actors like terror groups, to people calling targeted killings
state terrorismState terrorism refers to acts of terrorism conducted by governments. Like the definition of terrorism and that of state-sponsored terrorism, the definition of state terrorism remains controversial and without international consensus.-Definition:...
itself. In addition, challegenes arise when one considers targeted killing in the context of both international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Both those for and against targeted killings are also often faced with accusations of being clearly partisan to one side of the particular struggle discussed.
- Pro: Various groups and individuals have supported assassinations such as those undertaken by Israel against opposed terror groups, claiming that the killing of people like Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin was a founder of Hamas, a Palestinian paramilitary organization and political party. Yassin also served as the spiritual leader of the organization...
is justified due to the fact that people like him provide "both religious and political cover" (for terrorist groups to operate), and that the fact that they may not have been physically involved in such crimes does not reduce their role. Arguing that the killings may produce leadership vacuums and disorganise their organisations. They also oppose the use of the term assassination, as it denotes murder, where targeting such leaders is seen as a move in self-defence, and thus killing, but not a crime.. They argue that there is evidence that target killing has been salutary in reducing the effectiveness of terrorist attacks. In Israel after adopting a policy of targeted killings deaths resulting from terrorist attacks by HAMAS plunged from a high of 75 in 2001, to 21 in 2005. . Some argue that even if the killing has little effect on the number and severity of terrorist attacks, targeted killing should be continued for 'retributionRetribution may refer to:* Retributive justice* Retribution Engine, a video game engine* Retribution , a novel by Jilliane Hoffman* Dreamland: Retribution, a 2007 novel by Jim DeFelice and Dale Brown...
and revengeRevenge is a harmful action against a person or group as a response to a grievance. Although many aspects of revenge resemble the concept of justice, revenge connotes a more injurious and punitive focus as opposed to a harmonious and restorative one...
'.
- Con: Criticism of targeted killings focuses on a number of aspects, from being claimed to be against international law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states, analogous entities, such as the Holy See, and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
to being destabilising to local situations and thus causing more violence, an opinion also held by such intermediaries as Álvaro de SotoÁlvaro de Soto is a Peruvian diplomat. He ended a 25 year career with the United Nations in May 2007.-Early years:De Soto studied law and international relations in Lima and Geneva prior to enlisting in his country's diplomatic corps...
, former UNThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
Middle East peace envoy. Criticism often also focuses on the murder of innocent victims of the more heavy-handed or failed targeted killings, in which civilians are often murdered in large numbers.
Targeted killings are also sometimes called "extrajudicial punishment" , as some states require some form of judicial trial
in absentiaIn absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use it usually pertains to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.-In absentia in common law legal systems:...
before such an undertaking.
Psychology
A major study about assassination attempts in the US in the second half of the 20th century came to the conclusion that most prospective assassins spend copious amounts of time planning and preparing for their attempts. Assassinations are thus rarely a case of 'impulsive' action.
However, about 25% of the actual attackers were found to be
delusionA delusion, in everyday language, is a fixed belief that is either false, fanciful, or derived from deception. Psychiatry defines the term more specifically as a belief that is pathological...
al, a figure that rose to 60% with 'near-lethal approachers' (people apprehended before reaching their target). This incidentally shows that while mental instability plays a role in many modern-age assassinations, the more delusional attackers are less likely to succeed in their attempt. The report also found that around two thirds of the attackers had previously been arrested for (not necessarily related) offenses, that around 44% had a history of serious
depressionIn psychology and psychiatry, depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity. While most often described as a disease or dysfunction, there are also strong arguments for seeing depression as an adaptive defense mechanism....
, and that 39% had a history of substance abuse.
Ancient methods
It seems likely that the first assassinations would have been direct and simple:
stabbingA stabbing is the penetration of a sharp or pointed object at close range. Stab connotes purposeful action, as by an assassin or murderer, but it is also possible to accidentally stab oneself or others, although such stabbings are rarely serious and still more rarely fatal...
, strangling or
bludgeonBludgeon may refer to:* Bludgeon , a fictional character* Bludgeon , a club-like weapon* Crabtree's Bludgeon, a foil to Occam's Razor...
ing. Substantial planning or coordination would rarely have been involved, as tribal groups were too small, and the connection to the leaders too close. As
civilizationA civilization is a complex society or culture group characterized by dependence upon agriculture, long-distance trade, state form of government, occupational specialization, population, and class stratification.-Definition:...
took root, however, leaders began to have greater importance, and become more detached from the groups they ruled. This would have brought planning, subterfuge and weapons into successful assassination plans.
The key technique was likely
infiltrationIn warfare, infiltration tactics involve small, lightly-equipped infantry forces attacking enemy rear areas while bypassing enemy front line strongpoints and isolating them for attack by follow-up troops with heavier weapons....
, with the actual assassination by stabbing, smothering or strangulation.
PoisonIn the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism...
s also started to be used in many forms.
Death capAmanita phalloides , commonly known as the death cap, is a poisonous basidiomycete fungus, one of many in the genus Amanita. Widely distributed across Europe, A. phalloides associates with various deciduous trees. In some cases, death cap has been accidentally introduced to new regions with the...
mushrooms and similar plants became a traditional choice of assassins especially if they could not be perceived as poisonous by taste, and the symptoms of the poisoning did not show until after some time.
In ancient Rome, paid mobs were sometimes used to beat political enemies to death.
Modern methods
With the advent of effective ranged weaponry, and later
firearmA firearm is a device which projects either single or multiple projectiles at high velocity through a controlled explosion. The firing is achieved by the gases produced through rapid, confined burning of a propellant. This process of rapid burning is technically known as deflagration...
s, the position of an assassination target was more precarious. Bodyguards were no longer enough to hold back determined killers, who no longer needed to directly engage or even subvert the guard to kill the leader in question. Moreover, the engagement of targets at greater distance dramatically increased the chances for an assassin's survival. The
Regent Moray of ScotlandJames Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray , a member of the House of Stewart, was Regent of Scotland from 1567 until his assassination in 1570.- Life :...
was the first prominent figure to be assassinated by a firearm in 1570, and the first head of state was
William the SilentWilliam I, Prince of Orange , also widely known as William the Silent , or simply William of Orange , was the main leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish that set off the Eighty Years' War and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1648. He was born into the House...
of the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
in 1584.
GunpowderGunpowder, also called black powder, is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate. It burns rapidly, producing volumes of hot solids and gases which can be used as a propellant in firearms and as a pyrotechnic composition in fireworks. The term gunpowder also refers broadly to any...
and other explosives also allowed the use of bombs or even greater concentrations of explosives for deeds requiring a larger touch; for an example, the
Gunpowder PlotThe Gunpowder Conspiracy of 1605, as it was then known, was a failed assassination attempt by a group of provincial English Catholics against King James I of England and VI of Scotland...
could have 'assassinated' almost a thousand people had it not been foiled.
Explosives, especially the
car bombA car bomb is an improvised explosive device placed in a car or other vehicle and then detonated. It is commonly used as a weapon of assassination, terrorism, or guerrilla warfare, to kill the occupants of the vehicle, people near the blast site, or to damage buildings or other property...
, become far more common in modern history, with grenades and remote-triggered
landminesA land mine is a target triggered explosive weapon. Their non-explosive predecessors have been used on the battlefield since ancient times. Landmines were designed to be used to deter, channel, delay and kill an enemy. They have been used in various formats, for centuries and have featured in all...
also used, especially in the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
and Balkans (the initial attempt on
Archduke Franz FerdinandFranz Ferdinand was an Archduke of Austria-Este, Austro Hungarian and Royal Prince of Hungary and of Bohemia, and from 1889 until his death, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. His assassination in Sarajevo precipitated Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia...
's life was with a grenade). With heavy weapons, the
rocket propelled grenadeA rocket-propelled grenade is any hand-held, shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon capable of firing an unguided rocket equipped with an explosive warhead....
(RPG) has become a useful tool given the popularity of armored cars (discussed below), while Israeli forces have pioneered the use of aircraft-mounted missiles for assassination, as well as the innovative use of explosive devices.
A
sniperA sniper is a highly trained marksman who shoots targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the capabilities of regular personnel. Snipers typically have specialized training and distinct high-precision rifles...
with a precision rifle is often used in fictional assassinations. However, there are certain difficulties associated with long-range shooting, including finding a hidden shooting position with a clear line-of-sight, detailed advance knowledge of the intended victim's travel plans, the ability to identify the target at long range, and the ability to score a first-round lethal hit at long range, usually measured in hundreds of meters. A dedicated
sniper rifleIn military and law enforcement terminology, a sniper rifle is a rifle used to ensure accurate placement of bullets at longer ranges than small arms. A typical sniper rifle is built for optimal levels of accuracy, fitted with a telescopic sight and chambered for a military centerfire cartridge...
is also expensive, often costing thousands of dollars because of the high level of precision machining and hand-finishing required to achieve extreme accuracy.
Despite their comparative disadvantages,
handgunA handgun is a firearm designed to be held and operated by one hand, with the other hand optionally supporting the shooting hand. This characteristic differentiates handguns as a general class of firearms from their larger counterparts: long guns such as rifles and shotguns , mounted weapons such...
s are more easily concealable, and consequentially much more commonly used than rifles. Of 74 principal incidents evaluated in a major study about assassination attempts in the US in the second half of the 20th century, 51% were undertaken by a handgun, 30% with a rifle or shotgun, while 15% of the attempts used knives and 8% explosives (usage of multiple weapons/methods was reported in 16% of all cases).
In the case of state-sponsored assassination, poisoning offers the greatest level of deniability (the allegations are rarely proven).
Georgi MarkovGeorgi Ivanov Markov was a Bulgarian dissident writer.Markov originally worked as a novelist and playwright, but during 1969 he defected from Bulgaria, then a Stalinist state governed by President Todor Zhivkov...
, a
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a country in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north , Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south...
n dissident was assassinated by
ricinRicin is a protein that is extracted from the castor bean . It can be either a white powder or a liquid in crystalline form. Ricin is known to cause severe allergic reactions, and exposure to small quantities can be fatal.The U.S...
poisoning. A tiny pellet containing the poison was injected into his leg. Widespread allegations involving the Bulgarian government and
KGBThe KGB was the national security agency of the USSR. From 1954 until 1991, the Committee for State Security was the Communist state's premier secret police, internal security, and espionage organization, whose coat of arms—the Shield and the Sword—illustrate a national military hierarchy...
have not led to any legal results. The CIA has allegedly made several attempts to assassinate
Fidel CastroFidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban politician, one of the primary leaders of the Cuban Revolution, the Prime Minister of Cuba from February 1959 to December 1976, and then the President of the Council of State of Cuba until his resignation from the office in February 2008...
, many of the schemes involving poisoning his milkshakes.
A 2006 case in the
UKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
concerned the
assassination of Alexander LitvinenkoAlexander Litvinenko was a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, FSB and KGB, who escaped prosecution in Russia and received political asylum in the United Kingdom...
who was given a lethal dose of radioactive
poloniumPolonium is a chemical element with the symbol Po and atomic number 84, discovered in 1898 by Marie and Pierre Curie. A rare and highly radioactive metalloid, polonium is chemically similar to bismuth and tellurium, and it occurs in uranium ores. Polonium has been studied for possible use in...
-210, possibly passed to him in aerosol form sprayed directly onto his food. Litvinenko, a former KGB agent, had been granted asylum in the UK in 2000 after citing persecution in
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. Shortly before his death he issued a statement accusing then-President of Russia
Vladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich Putin was the second President of Russia and is the current Prime Minister of Russia as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus...
of involvement in his assassination. President Putin denies he had any part in Litvinenko's death.
Early forms
One of the earliest forms of defense against assassins was employing
bodyguardA bodyguard is a type of security guard or government agent who protects a person—usually a famous, wealthy, or politically important figure—from assault, kidnapping, assassination, stalking, loss of confidential information, or other threats.Most important public figures such as heads of state or...
s. Bodyguards act as a shield for the potential target, keeping lookout for potential attackers (sometimes in advance, for example on a parade route), and literally putting themselves 'in harm's way'--both by simple presence, showing that physical force is available to protect the target, and by shielding the target during any attack. In order to neutralize any attacker, bodyguards are typically armed as much as permitted by legal and practical concerns.
This bodyguard function was often executed by the leader's most loyal warriors, and was extremely effective throughout most of early human history, leading assassins to attempt stealthy means, such as
poisonIn the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism...
(which risk was answered by having
another person taste the leader's foodA food taster is a person that takes food to be served to someone else to confirm that it is safe to eat and does not contain toxins or poisons...
first).
Another notable measure is the use of a
body doubleA political decoy is a person employed to impersonate a politician, in order to draw attention away from the real person or to take risks on their behalf...
, a person who looks like the leader and who pretends to be the leader to draw attention away from the intended target.
Notable examples of bodyguards include the Roman
Praetorian GuardThe Praetorian Guard was a force of bodyguards used by Roman Emperors. Before being appropriated for the use of the Emperors' personal guards, the title was used for the guards of Roman generals, at least since the rise to prominence of the Scipio family around 275 BC...
or the Ottoman
JanissariesThe Janissaries comprised infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops and bodyguards...
--although, in both cases, the protectors sometimes became assassins themselves, exploiting their power to make the
head of stateHead of state is the generic term for the individual or collective office that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state...
a virtual hostage or killing the very leaders they were supposed to protect. The fidelity of individual bodyguards is an important question as well, especially for leaders who oversee states with strong ethnic or religious divisions. Failure to realize such divided loyalties led to the assassination of
Indian Prime MinisterThe Prime Minister of India is the head of government of the Republic of India, and head of the Council of Ministers, appointed by the President to assist the latter in the administration of the affairs of the executive in India...
Indira GandhiIndira Priyadarshini Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi ( Indirā Priyadarśinī Gāndhī; née: Nehru; (19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was the Prime Minister of the Republic of India for three consecutive terms from 1966 to 1977...
, assassinated by two
SikhSikh is the title and name given to an adherent of Sikhism. The term has its origin in the Sanskrit term , meaning "disciple, learner" or , meaning "instruction"....
bodyguards in 1984.
Modern strategies
With the advent of gunpowder, ranged assassination (via bombs or firearms) became possible. One of the first reactions was to simply increase the guard, creating what at times might seem a
small armyA brigade is a military unit that is typically composed of two to five regiments or battalions, depending on the era and nationality of a given army. Usually, a brigade is a sub-component of a division, a larger unit consisting of two or more brigades; however, some brigades are classified as a...
trailing every leader; another was to begin clearing large areas whenever a leader was present, to the point where entire sections of a city might be shut down.
As the 20th century dawned, the prevalence of assassins and their capabilities skyrocketed, and so did measures to protect against them. For the first time,
armored carA civilian armored car is a security vehicle which made by replacing the windows of a standard vehicle with bulletproof glass and inserting layers of armor plate into the body panels...
s or armored limousines were put into service for safer transport, with modern versions rendering them virtually invulnerable to
small armsSmall arms is a term of art used by armed forces to denote infantry weapons an individual soldier may carry. The description is usually limited to revolvers, pistols, submachine guns, carbines, assault rifles, rifles, sniper rifles, squad automatic weapons, light machine guns, and sometimes hand...
fire and smaller bombs and
minesA land mine is a target triggered explosive weapon. Their non-explosive predecessors have been used on the battlefield since ancient times. Landmines were designed to be used to deter, channel, delay and kill an enemy. They have been used in various formats, for centuries and have featured in all...
.
Bulletproof vestA ballistic vest, bulletproof vest or bullet-resistant vest is an item of protective clothing that helps absorb the impact from firearm-fired projectiles and shrapnel from explosions, and is worn on the torso...
s also began to be used, though they were of limited utility, restricting movement and leaving the head unprotected - as such they tended to be worn only during high-profile public events if at all.
Access to famous persons, too, became more and more restrictive; potential visitors would be forced through numerous different checks before being granted access to the official in question, and as
communication Communication is a process of transferring information from one entity to another. Communication processes are sign-mediated interactions between at least two agents which share a repertoire of signs and semiotic rules. Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of...
became better and
information technologyInformation technology , as defined by the Information Technology Association of America , is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." IT deals with the use of electronic...
more prevalent, it has become all but impossible for a would-be killer to get close enough to the personage at work or in private life to effect an attempt on his or her life, especially given the common use of
metalA metal detector is a device which uses electromagnetic induction to detect metal.The simplest form of a metal detector consists of an oscillator producing an alternating current that passes through a coil producing an alternating magnetic field...
and
bomb detectorBomb disposal is the process by which hazardous explosive devices are rendered safe. Bomb disposal is an all encompassing term to describe the separate, but interrelated functions in the following fields:*Military:...
s. This is, of course, assuming that the assassin does not decide to simply use his or her bare hands.
Most modern assassinations have been committed either during a public performance or during
transportTransport or transportation is the movement of people and goods from one location to another. Transport is performed by modes, such as air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline and space...
, both because of weaker security and security lapses, such as with US
PresidentThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and former
PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located at the crossroads of South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia...
i Prime Minister
Benazir BhuttoBenazir Bhutto was a Pakistani politician who chaired the Pakistan Peoples Party , a centre-left political party in Pakistan. Bhutto was the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state, having twice been Prime Minister of Pakistan . She was Pakistan's first and to date only female prime minister...
, or as part of
coups d'étatA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
where security is either overwhelmed or completely removed, such as with
Patrice LumumbaPatrice Émery Lumumba was an African anti-colonial leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo after he helped win its independence from Belgium in June 1960. Only ten weeks later, Lumumba's government was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis...
and likely
Salvador AllendeSalvador Isabelino Allende Gossens was a physician and the first democratically elected Marxist socialist to become president of a state in the Americas....
.
The methods used for protection by famous people have sometimes evoked negative reactions by the public, with some resenting the separation from their officials or major figures. One example might be traveling in a car protected by a bubble of clear
bulletproof glassBulletproof glass is a colloquial term for glass that is particularly resistant to being penetrated when struck by bullets. Since manufacturing glass of usable thicknesses capable of fully stopping most bullets cannot currently be done, the industry generally refers to it as bullet-resistant glass...
, such as the
PopemobilePopemobile is an informal name for the specially designed motor vehicles used by the Pope during outdoor public appearances without having to employ the antiquated and often impractical sedia gestatoria. The Popemobile was designed to allow the Pope to be more visible when greeting large crowds...
of
PopeThe pope is the Bishop of Rome and, as such, is leader of the worldwide Catholic Church...
John Paul IIPope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła served as Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death almost 27 years later. His was the second-longest pontificate; only Pope Pius IX served longer...
(built following an attempt at his life). Politicians themselves often resent this need for separation - which has at times caused tragedy when they sent their bodyguards from their side for personal or publicity reasons, as U.S. President
William McKinleyWilliam McKinley Jr. was the 25th President of the United States, and the last veteran of the American Civil War to be elected to the office....
did during the public reception at which he was assassinated.
Other potential targets go into seclusion, and are rarely heard from or seen in public, such as
writerA writer is anyone who creates a written work, though the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms.-Profession:...
Salman RushdieSir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a British Indian novelist and essayist. He achieved fame with his second novel, Midnight's Children , which won the Booker Prize in 1981. Much of his early fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent...
. A related form of protection is the use of
body doublesA political decoy is a person employed to impersonate a politician, in order to draw attention away from the real person or to take risks on their behalf...
, a person built similar to the person he is expected to impersonate. These persons are then made up, as well as in some cases
alteredPlastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the correction or restoration of form and function. While famous for aesthetic surgery, plastic surgery also includes two main fields: body modification and reconstructive surgery...
to look like the target, with the body double then taking the place of the person in high risk situations. According to Joe R. Reeder, Under Secretary of the Army from 1993–1997 writing in Fox News,
Fidel CastroFidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban politician, one of the primary leaders of the Cuban Revolution, the Prime Minister of Cuba from February 1959 to December 1976, and then the President of the Council of State of Cuba until his resignation from the office in February 2008...
had also used body doubles, though no details were specified.
See also
- List of assassins
- List of assassinated people
- List of unsuccessful assassinations
- List of assassinations and assassination attempts
- List of United States presidential assassination attempts
- Assassinations in fiction
Assassinations have formed a major plot element in various works of fiction and have also attracted scholarly attention. In Assassinations and Murder in Modern Italy: Transformations in Society and Culture, Stephen Gundle and Lucia Rinaldi analyze modern Italian assassinations in their historical...
- Contract killing
Contract killing is a form of assassination in which one entity hires another entity to kill a target individual or group of people. It involves an illegal agreement between two parties in which one party agrees to kill the target in exchange for some kind of remuneration, monetary or otherwise...
- Special Activities Division
The Special Activities Division is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service , responsible for covert action and "special activities". These activities include covert political action and paramilitary operations...
- Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed is a third person action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released worldwide in November 2007 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game consoles, and April 2008 for Windows and a ported version in Q2 2009 for the iPhone/iPod...
External links
- Assassinology.org a website dedicated to the study of assassination
- CNN
Cable News Network, almost always referred to by its initialism CNN, is an U.S. cable news network founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first network to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television network in the United States...
A short article on the U.S. policy banning political assassination since 1976 from CNN.com/Law CENTER, November 4, 2002. See also Ford'sGerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
1976 executive order. However, Executive Order 12333On 4 December 1981 President Ronald Reagan signedExecutive Order 12333,an Executive Order intended toextend powers and responsibilities of US intelligence agencies and direct the leaders of U.S...
which prohibited the CIA from assassinations was relaxed by the George W. Bush administrationThe Presidency of George W. Bush began on his inauguration on January 20, 2001 as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
.
- Kretzmer, David (PDF)