Given the growing global threats of terrorism, it is important to understand the history, nature and mechanisms under which terrorism operates. This is important as it would shape the perspective of policy makers when faced with issues of this nature. Terrorism, as we understand it, is the action of weak, non-state actors, individuals or groups, who, for certain reasons, feel repressed, marginalized and/or deprived of what they may consider to be a fundamental human right. All terrorism has political objectives, although its perpetrators may use religious relics to attract a larger existing audience and invoke a response with violent action to prove or propagate their point. Yoram Schweitzer in “Suicide Terrorism Development & Characteristics,” Mark Sedgwick in “Al-Qaeda and the “Nature of Religious Terrorism” and Dr. James Armstrong all demonstrate that suicide bombings are politically motivated, even if the perpetrator may use religious symbolism . to justify their actions. Looking at areas of the world where terrorism is common, particularly in the Middle East, it can be argued that the groups that engage in terrorist activity are those that feel repressed and exploited by a much larger power. Terrorism, particularly suicide terrorism, is prevalent in areas where systems of gross injustice appear to exist. Therefore, the actual use of terrorism by non-state actors is a tactic aimed at polarizing the population in their favor, by mass killing of people. attempt to eliminate the idea that only the state can legitimately kill – thereby undermining the authority of the state, like the example of Armstrong, Sedgwick and Schweitzer, suicide terrorism is not a new phenomenon, but an ancient historical phenomenon. And just as modern-day terrorist organizations, particularly Al-Qaeda, use religious concepts to motivate their actions (although their immediate goal is political), various former terrorist groups have used a similar approach to achieve their political goals. To understand the history of suicide terrorism and how terrorist groups have in the past used a religious tone to propagate their political line, Armstrong pointed to the Zealots, an extremist Jewish sect that opposed Jesus. The Zealots engaged in political assassinations of their political enemies, knowing that they would be killed in the process. Although their ultimate goal may have been religious, the immediate goal of the Zealots was political. Similarly, during the third century, the Assassins, a notorious terrorist branch (similar in nature to Al-Qaeda) in modern Syria, murdered many of their political opponents in order to establish their own form of Islam..