Pape claims to have compiled the world's first "database of every suicide bombing and attack around the globe from 1980 through 2003—315 attacks in all" (3). "The data show that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world's religions. ... Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland" (4). It is important that Americans understand this growing phenomenon (4–7).