SUICIDE bombings have become the world’s most common form of terrorism since the hijackings of September 11, 2001, and by far the most effective, apart from the potential use of weapons of mass destruction, according to a study released yesterday.

The pace of suicide attacks has accelerated so quickly that three quarters of all suicide bombings in the past 25 years have been carried out since the 2001 attacks on America.

Suicide bombings were first used as a terrorist tactic in Sri Lanka and the Lebanese civil war in the early 1980s, but in the past four years the method has spread rapidly, according to the Rand Corporation. Rand predicts that suicide attacks will pose a constant threat in the West.

The most startling increase in suicide missions has been in Iraq, where they account for two thirds of insurgent attacks. There have been 400 suicide bombings in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003. That compares with 315 suicide attacks worldwide between 1980 and 2003. This figure was published in a report two years ago by Robert Pape, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.

In May, according to Rand, an estimated 90 suicide bombings were carried out in Iraq, nearly as many as the Israeli Government has recorded in its conflict with the Palestinians since 1993.

“With the exception of weapons of mass destruction, there is no other type of attack that is more effective than suicide terrorism,” Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Rand, told The Washington Post.

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