Defending Against Assassins

Just like the wealthy in my The Queen’s Blade fantasy series, one of the first things our ancestors did to protect themselves from assassination was employ armed bodyguards. Bodyguards not only act as a shield, but keep an eye out for any threats, often scouting ahead. Those who hired them had to be careful about who they employed as bodyguards, though, for divided loyalties often led to the bodyguards being the assassins. This method of defence was so effective that assassins began to use stealthier methods like poisoning. This type of assassination, too, was easily avoided by employing food tasters.

Another popular means of defence against assassination is the employment of a body double – someone who pretends to be the potential target in order to draw attention from him or her in high-risk situations, and who looks similar enough to the potential target to be mistaken for him or her.

When firearms and bombs became a more popular method of assassination, one of the first things potential targets did was increase their number of bodyguards. Large public areas where the person was due to appear were also cleared in advance, to make would-be assassins more visible.

At the dawn of the 20^th century, armoured vehicles began to be used to transport important people. Today, these vehicles can save one from most small arms fire, and even small bombs and mines. Bullet-proof vests also came into use, worn mostly just for public events.

Another way of defence against possible assassination is to limit access to high-profile people by putting visitors through numerous checks before they’re allowed to see the VIP. Bomb and metal detectors are also widely used in today’s world, as are security cameras in homes and offices.

Some potential targets go as far as to isolate themselves as a way of defence – not a nice way to live, I imagine!

Assassins in Disguise

Most famous assassins haven’t bothered with disguises, but the ones who did are perhaps the most interesting to learn about.

For instance, in 2013, a group of Mexicans dressed as clowns assassinated Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix, a member of the Arellano Felix drug cartel family. While he was attending a children’s birthday party, the ‘clowns’ shot him, once in the thorax and once in the head.

Often called a terrorist rather than an assassin, Carlos the Jackal, born Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, was a killer for hire. Trained in guerrilla warfare, weapons and sabotage, Carlos also gathered information on people he felt were worth kidnapping or assassinating. He was a bold, merciless killer, often walking into a place, shooting or throwing a grenade, then calmly walking out again. It might be surprising that it took so long for authorities to catch him, but then, he was known as a master of disguise and used fake documentation to authenticate each disguise. It’s thought that, due to this, many murders he didn’t commit were blamed on him. In 1985, he was so famous that no one would hire him, and was finally apprehended in 1994. Responsible for the deaths of more than 80 people, in 1997 he was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment.

In 1973, ETA – Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, or Basque Homeland and Freedom – operators posed as sculpture students and rented an apartment along Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco’s driving route. From the apartment, they dug a tunnel across the road that Blanco travelled weekly. That done, they filled the tunnel with explosives and, on the day, disguised themselves as electricians, waited for Blanco’s car to pass by, and detonated the explosives, killing Blanco. It just goes to show that disguises don’t need to be complicated – as long as you don’t look out of place or suspicious, any old uniform will do, and people tend to not notice the face behind the uniform.

Perhaps the easiest – and most devious – disguise was that of Bolivian painter Benjamin Mendoza Flores. In 1970, Flores disguised himself as a priest and stabbed Pope Paul VI at the airport. Though the pope was badly hurt, he survived the attack.

Potential victims, too, can effectively use disguises, as President Lincoln has shown. In 1860, on his way to be inaugurated, a close friend uncovered an assassination plot against Lincoln, so he disguised himself as a frail old woman, complete with a dress, shawl and walking cane, thus foiling the assassination plot.

Female Assassins – Watch Out! She Bites!

Most famous assassins are men, but there are also quite a few famous female assassins, of which Charlotte Corday is probably one of the best known. Corday, nicknamed the Angel of Assassination, assassinated the French Revolution’s Jean-Paul Marat in 1793, effectively turning him into a martyr and saint of sorts. At first, Corday was generally loathed for the murder, but, during the Second Empire, many French citizens began to see her as a heroine.

Marat had a skin disease that could only be alleviated by cold baths, causing him to conduct most business from his bath tub in the last few years of his life, so it wasn’t considered at all odd for Corday to request an audience while her victim-to-be was bathing. In the privacy of his bathroom, she stabbed him to death, but was caught and executed by guillotine.

The best-known female would-be assassin is possibly Sara Jane Moore, who attempted to kill future President Gerald Ford in 1975. Luckily for him, she missed the shot thanks to a bystander who saw her aiming and yanked her arm. She received a thirty-two year ‘life sentence’, and the then-72-year-old was released in 2007.

Other famous female assassins include Shi Jianqiao, who killed the warlord Sun Chuanfang to avenge her father’s death, and Marcia Aurelia Ceionia Demetrias, who poisoned Roman Emperor Commodus after discovering that he planned to execute her. A few other would-be female assassins are Fanni Kaplan, who failed to kill Vladimir Lenin despite shooting him three times, Violet Gibson, who shot Mussolini twice in the nose, and Izola Curry, who stabbed Martin Luther King Jr with a letter opener at a book signing in 1958.

If Curry had succeeded, the Civil Rights Movement would probably have turned out very differently. True to his nature, King forgave her and held no grudge for the attempted murder, and, because the court judged her unfit to stand trial, she was committed to the Matteawan State Hospital for the criminally insane. Her current whereabouts are unknown as far as I can see, and it’s unclear if she’s even still alive.

Then there are the Kunoichi – ancient Japanese female ninjas who were trained to seduce and poison their victims, sometimes gaining easy access by disguising themselves as prostitutes – much like the assassin Blade sometimes does in The Queen’s Blade, although the Kunoichi had it easier than Blade, since they already had all the right body parts necessary for the disguise.

More recently, Maria Jimenez aka La Tosca was dubbed Mexico’s ‘deadliest female assassin’ after confessing to killing twenty people – amongst other things, like kidnapping, car theft and drug dealing. Unlike most assassins, Jimenez is an assassin in the truest sense of the word – the Los Zetas drug cartel allegedly paid her $1700 a month for her services, which included killing whoever she was asked to kill. Jimenez, a 26-year-old widow, was arrested in 2012 when she gunned down a police officer and rival drug traffickers.

The History of Assassins

Although the ‘art’ of assassination only got its name in the Middle Ages, assassinations have been performed from the beginning of recorded history. Even the Christian Bible’s Old Testament speaks of assassinations, in the story of Judith, who freed the Israelites by assassinating the Assyrian warlord, Holofernes. Assyria’s King Sennacherib’s sons assassinated him, King David’s son was assassinated by Joab, and there’s also the biblical story of Judah’s King Joash, who was supposedly assassinated by his servants.

Politics isn’t always the reason for assassinations, but it had always been one of the main reasons. Some famous ancient assassination victims include Julius Caesar (44 BC) and Phillip II of Macedon, Alexander the Great’s father (336 BC). Historical kings assassinated include the Netherlands’ King William the Silent (1584), France’s King Henry III (1589) and King Henry IV (1610), and Poland’s King Przemysł II (1296).

In Western Europe in the Middle Ages, the assassination of a ruler was rare, but it happened frequently in parts of the Roman Empire. During the Renaissance, political assassinations in Western Europe became more common, however.

As already mentioned, the name ‘assassin’ was coined in the Middle Ages, based on a rumour started by Marco Polo two centuries after the Order of Assassins was founded in 1090 by Ismaili Hassan-i-Sabah. (You can read about the Order of Assassins in more detail here.) According to Marco Polo, the Order of Assassins’ leaders ensured their assassins’ loyalty by drugging them, then taking them to a garden in which they were given all sorts of pleasures – the same pleasures that supposedly waited for them in the afterlife if they died in battle. The drug used was called hashish, and ‘hashishin’ meant ‘user of hashish’ in Arabic. Thus came about the name ‘assassin’, according to many. However, modern Islamic sources make no mention of this garden. In all probability, the word’s true origins had something to do with it being used as an insult to the Nizari Ismailis when they separated from the Mustali Ismailis.

In modern history, the assassination of VIPs became more than just a power struggle between rulers, and began to be used to make political statements. Many US Presidents have been assassinated, and there have been at least 20 known attempts on US Presidents’ lives.

It seems assassination as a tool has been around for as long as humans have, and it’s doubtful the ‘art’ will die any time soon.

Order of Assassins

In my fantasy series, The Queen’s Blade, the assassin Blade is a member of an assassins’ guild. It’s the stuff of fiction, right? Wrong.

Between 1090 and 1273, the Order of Assassins was a very real entity in the Middle East. The order’s few members were Shiite Muslims who were considered heretics by not only the Sunni Muslims, but also other Shiites. Due to the efforts of the leader, Hasan-i Sabbah, by the end of the 11^th century the order had become one of the deadliest terrorist groups in today’s recorded history.

The Order of Assassins’ members often spent months or years following or infiltrating the targets, who they considered political or religious enemies. The killings were up close and personal, mostly in public places such as mosques. One ‘infiltrated’ assassination was that of Conrad of Montferrat, who was to be the Kingdom of Acre’s next ruler. In 1192, two assassins who were posing as Christian Arab monks killed him.

The assassins never killed innocents like today’s terrorists, only targeting prominent figures. They never tried to flee the scene either, apparently not fearing death.

By the middle of the 12^th century, Sunni leaders left the Order of Assassins alone, realising it wasn’t good for their longevity.

Ultimately, the invading Mongols, under the rule of Genghis Khan, destroyed the Order of Assassins to guarantee their own safety after hearing of the order’s reputation.

The above illustration depicts an Order of Assassins member (left) stabbing Nizam al-Mulk, a Seljuk vizier. (Source: wikimedia.org; originally from a 14^th century manuscript)