"Suicide bomber is a misnomer. Since their mission is to kill others, they should be called homicide bombers."
Never seen the point of that construction, it doesn't seem to say anything. How do you distinguish between a homicide bomber who intends to kill himself in his act and a homicide bomber who leaves a bomb to explode later and escapes?
Fox News started this "homicide bomber" nonsense. One senses the journos feel stuck with the idiocy.
Hey, Roger Ailes, the word "bomber" implies homicide. Let your journos speak proper English.
"How do you distinguish between a homicide bomber who intends to kill himself in his act and a homicide bomber who leaves a bomb to explode later and escapes?"
There is no distinction between the two. The intent of both acts is to kill others, not himself. Thus, the bomber is on an homicide mission, irrespective of whether he kills himself or not. Someone who goes out to kill another person commits an homicide. If, in doing so, he intenionally kills himself, yes, he would have committed a suicide, but that is collateral to the actual intent of the act, ie, to kill others. If, otoh, in his mission he inadvertently kills himself, he hasn't committed a suicide since there was no intent of killing himself, and the act is strictly an homicide.
And that's my peonistic take. I ain't no lawyer.