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Assassins: The Medieval Murder Cult That Terrorized the Middle East

Khalid Elhassan January 23, 2025 14 min

Assassins - The Old Man of the Mountain and his followers, as depicted in the TV series 'Al Hashashin' — The Old Man of the Mountain and his followers, as depicted in the TV series 'Al Hashashin'. TMDB

9. Carefully Selected Hitmen

An Assassin on the verge of springing into action. NME

The Assassins were terrorists who often willingly – or even eagerly – sacrificed themselves in order to accomplish their missions. However, there were some key differences between them and modern suicide bombers. The latter are crude human instruments of terror, who typically need little more by way of tactical skill other than the ability to press a detonator. By contrast, the Assassins’ suicide hitmen were carefully selected and well trained in combat and disguises. Aside from the requisite physical fitness, they had to be swift on the uptake, well read, intelligent, patient, calculating, and cold. They also needed to possess significant charisma in order to infiltrate their opponents’ defenses, and to gain access to and come within striking distance of their target.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.