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A Psychological Autopsy of 9/11 Ringleader Mohamed Atta
Abstract
Simple logic dictates that some suicide terrorists are more significant than others. However, major questions still remain about the motives and psychology of 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta, arguably the most significant suicide terrorist in human history. This article constructs a psychological autopsy of Atta in order to provide a much more complete explanation of his behavior. First, it suggests that accounts which solely attribute Atta’s actions to religious and political ideology appear severely incomplete. It then reviews evidence that Atta may have been clinically suicidal, and that his struggles with social isolation, depression, hopelessness, guilt, and shame were extraordinarily similar to the struggles of those who commit conventional suicide. Finally, it considers how Atta’s ideology may have interacted with his suicidal tendencies to produce his final act of murder-suicide on September 11, 2011.
... Again, essentially the same data collection method employed here has been used previously by Kelly (2010), Larkin (2009), andNewman et al. (2004). For each case, the attack year, location, and offender's name were first searched for in previous scholarship (Ames, 2005;Bazley & Mieczkowski, 2004;Duncan, 1995;Fox & Levin, 1994;Kelleher, 1997;Langman, 2009aLangman, , 2009bLankford, 2011, Lankford & Hakim, 2011Larkin, 2009;Lieberman, 2006;Newman, 2007;Newman et al., 2004;Newman & Fox, 2009;Thompson & Kyle, 2005;Tonso, 2009;Windham et al., 2005) and in government reports (Clark County Prosecuting Attorney, 2002;Kelly, 2010;Lieberman & Collins, 2011;O'Toole, 2000;Pollack et al., 2008;Rugala, 2003;Vossekuil et al., 2002). All data for the aforementioned variables that could be derived from these sources were entered into the data set. ...
... If the conventional wisdom about suicide terrorists was accurate, there should be very few similarities between suicide terrorists and rampage or school shooters. However, this study's findings suggest the opposite, and thus squarely support other recent scholarship that suggests that many suicide terrorists are in fact suicidal in the conventional sense (Lankford, 2010(Lankford, , 2011Merari et al., 2010). Much like rampage and school shooters, the suicide terrorists in this study exhibited many common risk factors for suicide, such as social marginalization, family problems, work or school problems, and precipitating crises (see Table 1). ...
... Scholarly Sources: Ames, 2005;Bazley & Mieczkowski, 2004;Duncan, 1995;Fox & Levin, 1994;Kelleher, 1997;Langman, 2009a;Langman, 2009b;Lankford, 2011, Lankford & Hakim, 2011Larkin, 2009;Lieberman, 2006;Newman, 2007;Newman et al., 2004;Newman & Fox, 2009;Thompson & Kyle, 2005;Tonso, 2009;Windham et al., 2005. Government Sources: Clark County Prosecuting Attorney, 2002Lieberman & Collins, 2011;Kelly, 2010;O'Toole, 2000;Pollack et al., 2008;Rugala, 2003;Vossekuil et al., 2002. ...
This study presents results from the first combined quantitative assessment and comparative analysis of suicide terrorists and rampage, workplace, and school shooters who attempt suicide. Findings suggest that in the United States from 1990 to 2010, the differences between these offenders (N = 81) were largely superficial. Prior to their attacks, they struggled with many of the same personal problems, including social marginalization, family problems, work or school problems, and precipitating crisis events. Ultimately, patterns among all four types of offenders can assist those developing security policy, conducting threat assessments, and attempting to intervene in the lives of at-risk individuals.
... Mohamed Atta never wanted to leave his home in Egypt, but his overbearing father forced him to move to Germany to pursue a graduate degree. While alone in that foreign land he struggled with social isolation, depression, guilt, shame, and a range of other personal problems (Crewdson 2004, Lankford 2011a, Meloy 2004, McDermott 2005. Back home, his parents became estranged and his mother was diagnosed with diabetes, but they refused Atta's pleas to return and live with them on a permanent basis (McDermott 2005). ...
... In turn, Atta had suffered for seven long years in a foreign land, where he struggled with social isolation, depression, guilt, shame, and a range of other personal problems (Crewdson 2004, Lankford 2011a, Meloy 2004, McDermott 2005. Even when he joined a group of other Islamic fundamentalists, he failed to fit in, was mocked behind his back, and refused to engage in the pleasurable activities enjoyed by the others, such as listening to music, going to the movies, or even eating delicious food (Lankford 2011a, McDermott 2005. ...
... In turn, Atta had suffered for seven long years in a foreign land, where he struggled with social isolation, depression, guilt, shame, and a range of other personal problems (Crewdson 2004, Lankford 2011a, Meloy 2004, McDermott 2005. Even when he joined a group of other Islamic fundamentalists, he failed to fit in, was mocked behind his back, and refused to engage in the pleasurable activities enjoyed by the others, such as listening to music, going to the movies, or even eating delicious food (Lankford 2011a, McDermott 2005. There is virtually no evidence that Atta genuinely enjoyed life; reports say he almost never laughed and that he once told an acquaintance that 'Joy kills the heart' (Crewdson 2004, McDermott 2005. ...
For thousands of years people have saved their loudest praise for individuals who made ‘the ultimate sacrifice.’ Recently, however, many people have begun to equate suicide terrorism with sacrificial heroism. These assertions benefit from a general lack of conceptual clarity regarding the nature of sacrificial heroism itself. Therefore, this paper aims to explore, describe, and define sacrificial heroism, arguing that it requires two primary things: the risk of something highly valued; and the attempt to achieve a directly morally positive result. The paper then reviews four representative scenarios, including two types of suicide terrorism and two types of sacrificial heroism, in order to highlight several critical differences between those actions that deserve to be praised as supremely heroic and those which clearly do not.
... While the historical view among experts has been that terrorists do not show any specific psychiatric or psychological abnormalities (Crenshaw, 1981(Crenshaw, , 1986Kruglanski & Fishman, 2006;Merari, 2010;Pape, 2005;Post, 2005Post, , 2007Sageman, 2008;Silke, 2004), recent studies of lone actor terrorists, but not group terrorists, have tended to contradict these views (Capellan, 2015;Corner & Gill, 2015Corner, Gill, & Mason, 2016;Gill, 2015;Gill, Horgan, & Deckert, 2014;Gruenewald, Chermak, & Freilich, 2013;Hewitt, 2003;Lankford, 2012;Meloy & Yakeley, 2014;Misiak et al., 2019;Spaaij, 2010). Such work has resurrected interest in the psychiatric disorders and psychological factors, and by extension the psychodynamic hypotheses concerning the structure of personality and the course of life events, that may advance radicalization and pave the ways for terrorist acts. ...
This is a psychoanalytic case study of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the terrorist who bombed the Boston Marathon in April, 2013, with the help of his younger brother. The focus is upon the nexus between his psychopathology and ideology, in this particular case an arguable paranoid and psychotic disorder and his growing commitment to radical Islam, culminating in his identification as a jihadist warrior and a renunciation of Western ideals. The theoretical approach is both object relations and developmental, with empirical reliance on both primary and secondary source material, including the testimony of those within his family and social network at his brother’s trial. The nexus of psychopathology and ideology in this case is the degree to which conspiratorial belief systems blaming, among others, an international Jewish conspiracy and a covert CIA program—which he found in both the virtual (Internet) and terrestrial (travel to Dagestan) worlds—helped alleviate the anxiety of a decompensating mind.
... While the literature on radicalisation seems to abound with research on how people become radicalised, there are hardly any in-depth approaches that accurately assess the psychology and motivation of the individual (Khader, 2016;Klausen, Campion, Needle, PSYCHOLOGY OF VIOLENT EXTREMISM 28 Nguyen, & Libretti, 2015). Taking insights from the domains of criminal and health psychology, violent extremism researchers can consider extrapolating the principles behind the concept of "psychological autopsy" (see Isometsä, 2001;Lankford, 2012) to provide a much more complete explanation of behaviours associated with the radicalisation process. ...
Psychology research has provided a unique human-centric approach to examining violent extremism. While much progress has been made in understanding the psychology of violent extremism, there remain many unanswered challenges and unchartered territories of knowledge in the field. There is therefore a need to articulate the nature and direction of current psychological research on violent extremism by highlighting trends found in the literature. This chapter synthesises the lessons gathered from research from 2011 to 2015 using a systematic review of four major academic databases. In doing so, it highlights themes that have been analysed by social science researchers. Implications for future directions for research on the psychology of violent extremism are also discussed.
... As Lankford (2012) worked it out in his psychological autopsy of 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta, "the interaction between suicidal risk and ideology may provide the most complete explanation of his final behavior" (p. 159). ...
The case of the Frankfurt Airport attack in 2011 in which a 21-year-old man shot several U.S. soldiers, murdering 2 U.S. airmen and severely wounding 2 others, is assessed with the Terrorist Radicalization Assessment Protocol (TRAP-18). The study is based on an extensive qualitative analysis of investigation and court files focusing on the complex interconnection among offender personality, specific opportunity structures, and social contexts. The role of distal psychological factors and proximal warning behaviors in the run up to the deed are discussed. Although in this case the proximal behaviors of fixation on a cause and identification as a “soldier” for the cause developed over years, we observed only a very brief and accelerated pathway toward the violent act. This represents an important change in the demands placed upon threat assessors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
... (1) social isolation, (2) depression, (3) guilt and shame, and (4) hopelessness (see also Lankford 2012a). ...
The psychology of suicide terrorism involves more than simply the psychology of suicide. Individual differences in social dominance orientation (SDO) interact with the socio-structural, political context to produce support for group-based dominance among members of both dominant and subordinate groups. This may help explain why, in one specific context, some people commit and endorse terrorism, whereas others do not.
... (1) social isolation, (2) depression, (3) guilt and shame, and (4) hopelessness (see also Lankford 2012a). ...
Lankford's essential empirical argument, which is based on evidence such as psychological autopsies, is that suicide attacks are caused by suicidality. By operationalizing this causal claim in a hypothetical experiment, I show the claim to be provable, and I contend that its truth is supported by Lankford's data. However, I question his ensuing arguments about beauty and goodness, and thereby the practical value of his work in counterterrorist propaganda.
... (1) social isolation, (2) depression, (3) guilt and shame, and (4) hopelessness (see also Lankford 2012a). ...
For years, scholars have claimed that suicide terrorists are not suicidal, but rather psychologically normal individuals inspired to sacrifice their lives for an ideological cause, due to a range of social and situational factors. I agree that suicide terrorists are shaped by their contexts, as we all are. However, I argue that these scholars went too far. In The Myth of Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers, I take the opposing view, based on my in-depth analyses of suicide attackers from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North America; attackers who were male, female, young, old, Islamic, and Christian; attackers who carried out the most deadly and the least deadly strikes. I present evidence that in terms of their behavior and psychology, suicide terrorists are much like others who commit conventional suicides, murder-suicides, or unconventional suicides where mental health problems, personal crises, coercion, fear of an approaching enemy, or hidden self-destructive urges play a major role. I also identify critical differences between suicide terrorists and those who have genuinely sacrificed their lives for a greater good. By better understanding suicide terrorists, experts in the brain and behavioral sciences may be able to pioneer exciting new breakthroughs in security countermeasures and suicide prevention. And even more ambitiously, by examining these profound extremes of the human condition, perhaps we can more accurately grasp the power of the human survival instinct among those who are actually psychologically healthy.
... (1) social isolation, (2) depression, (3) guilt and shame, and (4) hopelessness (see also Lankford 2012a). ...
Despite growing evidence to the contrary, it is still widely assumed that suicide terrorists are not actually suicidal. However, this review supports recent studies which suggest the opposite, and presents initial evidence that much like other suicidal individuals, many suicide terrorists appear to be driven by clinically suicidal risk factors, including: (1) the desire to escape the world they live in, (2) the desire to escape moral responsibility for their actions, (3) the inability to cope with a perceived crisis, and (4) a sense of low self-worth. By establishing the links between suicide terrorism and suicidality, scholars may be able to better understand the nature of these violent attacks and develop more effective ways to stop them.
... (1) social isolation, (2) depression, (3) guilt and shame, and (4) hopelessness (see also Lankford 2012a). ...
For years, it has been widely agreed on that suicide terrorists are not suicidal individuals, and that behaviorally, they are more similar to noble soldiers who are willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause. However, upon closer examination, it appears that the foundation of this conventional wisdom is extraordinarily shaky. There are many reasons to think that both event-based and psychological risk factors for suicide may drive the behavior of suicide terrorists. Furthermore, there is growing evidence that more than 75 individual suicide terrorists have exhibited these classic suicidal traits. Given the power that the stigma of suicide may have to deter future suicide terrorists, it is critical that governments, scholars, and practitioners examine this issue once again.
Background
Homicide followed by suicide is rare, devastating and perpetrated worldwide. It is commonly assumed that the perpetrator had a mental disorder, raising concomitant questions about prevention. Though events have been reported, there has been no previous systematic review of the mental health of perpetrators.
Aims
Our aims were twofold. First, to identify whether there are recognisable subgroups of homicide–suicides in published literature and, secondly, to investigate the relationship between perpetrator mental state and aspects of the incident.
Methods
We conducted a systematic review of published literature on studies of homicide followed within 24 h by suicide or serious suicide attempt that included measures of perpetrator mental state.
Results
Sixty studies were identified, most from North America or Europe. Methodologically, studies were too heterogeneous for meta-analysis. They fell into three main groups: family, mass shooter, and terrorist with an additional small mixed group. There was evidence of mental illness in a minority of perpetrators; its absence in the remainder was only partially evidenced. There was no clear association between any specific mental illness and homicide–suicide type, although depression was most cited. Social role disjunction, motive, substance misuse and relevant risk or threat behaviours were themes identified across all groups. Pre-established ideology was relevant in the mass shooter and terrorism groups. Prior trauma history was notable in the terrorist group.
Conclusion
Research data were necessarily collected post-incident and in most cases without a standardised approach, so findings must be interpreted cautiously. Nevertheless, they suggest at least some preventive role for mental health professionals. Those presenting to services with depression, suicidal ideation, relationship difficulties and actual, or perceived, changes in social position or role would merit detailed, supportive assessment over time.
Humility is of deep significance for the functioning of democratic societies, as it is the psychic basis of the capacity to function in a citizenly way. Its meaning as the opposite of humiliation shows a deep ambiguity in the resonances today of the Latin word humus (meaning ground or soil) which is the source of both terms. Psychoanalytically, this ambiguity can be seen as reflecting a basic choice we repeatedly make in our psychological functioning. On the one hand is the inability to trust others, and the consequent narcissistic illusions of a fully independent self which can escape the humiliation which dependence on others is felt to bring. On the other hand, there is sufficient trust in others to accept the self’s dependence on human society, and so to accept the inevitability of vulnerability and limitation. This toleration of reality involves a state of humility or humbleness. Humility is therefore an antidote to the fear of humiliation, which is a key driver of many forms of violence, including terrorism. The article ends with a consideration of whether strengthening resources of humility could be a helpful contribution to containing violent behaviour.KeywordsEmotional capitalHumilityNarcissismPsychic developmentTerrorismTrust
On 15 December 2014, nearly 20 years after he arrived in Australia from Iran, Man Haron Monis took 18 people hostage in the Lindt Caf'e in Sydney and announced that Australia was ‘under attack by the Islamic State’. After a 16-hour siege, during which negotiators had no direct communication with him, Monis shot dead one of his hostages, precipitating the police ‘emergency action’ which broke the siege. Although Monis had been a prolific user of the Internet and social media, the subsequent Coroner’s inquest found that Monis made little sophisticated preparation for the siege and did not announce his intention nor did he leave any clear terrorist-inspired message or martyrdom video. Other than demanding a debate with the Prime Minister on radio and have the Islamic State flag delivered to the caf'e, Monis made no specific terrorist demands. At the time of the siege, Monis was also on bail, charged with multiple sex offences against women, alleged to have been committed whilst he held himself out as a ‘spiritual healer’. Monis was also charged with being an accessory to the murder of his former partner and had recently failed to obtain custody of his two Australian born children. His professed status as a Shi’a Muslim cleric was fraudulent, and forensic examination of his use of the Internet and social media found no evidence that Monis ever had any contact with Islamic State or any other terrorist organisation and that on the day before the siege, he had only 12 followers on Twitter. The evidence does not support the conclusion that Monis suddenly ‘radicalised’ and committed an act of terrorism. Instead, the evidence shows that Monis was a malignant narcissist whose behaviour can better be formulated as lone-actor grievance-fuelled violence.
This article assesses the original concept of seven decisions related to suicide as it was originally proposed in 1979 by Goulding and Goulding. It examines the suicidal life script, including how it forms with the acceptance of the Don’t Exist injunction and is then personalized with the seven suicide decisions. The author considers the relationship between suicide and homicide and how they are similar and provides a transactional analysis explanation of homicidal behavior. The concept of suicidal ambivalence is presented to explain why all suicide attempts are half hearted. Seven suicide decisions and their clinical relevance are described.
More than 15 years have passed since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and a comprehensive re-examination of the 9/11 attackers is now warranted. Research on the psychology of terrorists has evolved dramatically, and there is also new information on some offenders. The present study provides the available psychological and psychiatric evidence on each of the 9/11 pilots, muscle hijackers, and thwarted hijackers who intended to participate in the “planes operation.” Overall, findings suggest that the 9/11 terrorists may have had significantly more mental health problems than previously assumed, and the leaders who planned 9/11 personally approved suicide attackers with prior histories of mental illness. By widely publicizing this information, security officials may be able to more effectively delegitimize suicide terrorism and reduce the number of individuals who would consider funding, supporting, or committing these deadly attacks.
The Myth of Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers proposes that suicide terrorists are psychologically and behaviorally similar to other people who commit suicide, due to a range of individual, social, and situational factors. Some commentators agree, while others are skeptical, given the lack of information about many attackers' lives. However, the book's position is not simply based on individual case studies; it is also supported by other independent assessments, the confirmation of empirical predictions, the paucity of contradictory evidence, and new applications of evolutionary theory. It is undisputed that human beings behave as the author suggests; it is unknown if they behave as the conventional wisdom suggests. Those who argue that suicide terrorists are psychologically normal and altruistically sacrificing their lives for an ideological cause should bear the burden of proof for those claims.
Terror organizations tend to rely on a limited number of practices to reinforce commitment to suicide on the part of recruits. Therefore, given the many difficulties associated with identifying individuals willing to become suicide terrorists, understanding the organizational contexts in which most suicide terrorism takes place is likely to be more useful than psychological profiling for predicting future attacks.
Research on the characteristics of suicide bombers is reviewed. Contrary to previous commentary, it is suggested that suicide bombers may share personality traits (such as the "authoritarian personality") that psychological profiles of suicide bombers might be feasible, and that the suicide bombers may be characterized by the risk factors that increase the probability of suicide.‐
In the United States, it seems unlikely that a foreign terrorist group would be able to assemble and maintain the required infrastructure within our borders that would provide a platform for a sustained campaign of suicide bombings. However, a strategy of infrequent suicide bombings supplemented by psychologically manipulative rhetoric during the intervals between attacks is plausible and could amplify the fear level. Attacks against high-value targets, use of weapons of mass destruction, or maintenance of an infrastructure on foreign soil with an operational capability for suicide attacks within our borders, would further amplify the psychological fallout. In either case, the potential psychological effects on society - including pervasive insecurity, reduced travel, commerce, and long-term investment, and foreign policy shifts in acquiescence to terrorist pressures - easily dwarf the potential physical effect of suicide terror on American soil. Therefore, identifying strategies to counter the psychological effects of suicide terror and promote resilience is an indispensable aspect of taking away its potential value to terrorist organizations around the world. Who becomes a suicidal terrorist and why is, perhaps obviously, a multifactorial "etiology" including significant developmental, psychodynamic, social, cultural, biological, temperamental, situational, and tactical-instrumental determinants. In other words, multiple "ingredients" often are needed in the manufacture and delivery of a suicide terrorist, or "human bomb" (Table 1, see page 706). For direct victims of terrorism and mass disasters, the principles of psychological support are relatively well developed. For the wider, societal target of the suicide bomber, psychological response is less well defined. Focusing on the intended effects of suicidal terror provides empowering insights to potential victims, enabling them to identify the boundary between rational and irrational fear and to neutralize the primary weapon of the suicide bombers (Table 2, see page 705).
This is a report of a direct psychological examination of suicide, or “martyrdom” terrorists and of organizers of martyrdom attacks. Assessments of the personality of self-martyrs have so far relied on biographical material drawn from secondary sources. In the absence of direct psychological examinations, the debate on the existence of distinctive personality factors among suicide terrorists has so far remained at the hypothetical level. This study subjected failed Palestinian suicide terrorists, a control group of non-suicide terrorists, and a group of organizers of suicide attacks, to clinical psychological interviews and tests. Significant differences were found between suicide and non-suicide terrorists and between these two groups and the organizers of martyrdom attacks. Two main personality styles were found among the would-be suicides. Members of this group had a significantly lower level of ego strength than the organizers of martyrdom attacks. Most of the would-be martyrs displayed a dependent and avoidant personality style, a profile that made them more amenable to group, leader, and public influence. Others were assessed as having an impulsive and emotionally unstable style. Some of the would-be martyrs but none of the control and organizers groups' participants displayed sub-clinical suicidal tendencies. Significantly more martyr than control group members displayed symptoms of depression.
Knowledge about the ways in which suicide attacks are recruited and prepared and on the motivation of suicide bombers and the factors that influence the decisions of organizers of suicide attacks has so far been sketchy and sporadic, derived mostly from media sources. In this study, 15 Palestinian would-be suicides and 14 organizers of suicide attacks participated in semi-structured interviews designed to fill this lacuna. The paper focuses on the self-reported feelings and behavior of the suicide bombers from recruitment to dispatching, as well as on the organizers' self-reported views and decisions concerning suicide attacks.
A number of researchers have sought to identify the features that school shooters have in common in terms of family life, personalities, histories, and behaviors. This article examines the cases of 10 rampage school-shooters in an effort to find out not only how they are alike, but also how they differ. Based on available information, these youths are categorized into three types: traumatized, psychotic, and psychopathic. Out of the 10 shooters discussed, three were traumatized, five were psychotic, and two were psychopathic. The three traumatized shooters all came from broken homes with parental substance abuse and parental criminal behavior. They all were physically abused and two were sexually abused outside of the home. The five psychotic shooters had schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, including schizophrenia and schizotypal personality disorder. They all came from intact families with no history of abuse. The two psychopathic shooters were neither abused nor psychotic. They demonstrated narcissism, a lack of empathy, a lack of conscience, and sadistic behavior. Most people who are traumatized, psychotic, and psychopathic do not commit murder. Beyond identifying the three types of rampage shooters, additional factors are explored that may have contributed to the attacks. These include family structure, role models, and peer influence.
The psychological autopsy method offers the most direct technique currently available for examining the relationship between particular antecedents and suicide. This systematic review aimed to examine the results of studies of suicide that used a psychological autopsy method.
A computer aided search of MEDLINE, BIDS ISI and PSYCHLIT, supplemented by reports known to the reviewers and reports identified from the reference lists of other retrieved reports. Two investigators systematically and independently examined all reports. Median proportions were determined and population attributable fractions were calculated, where possible, in cases of suicide and controls.
One hundred and fifty-four reports were identified, of which 76 met the criteria for inclusion; 54 were case series and 22 were case-control studies. The median proportion of cases with mental disorder was 91% (95 % CI 81-98%) in the case series. In the case-control studies the figure was 90% (88-95%) in the cases and 27% (14-48%) in the controls. Co-morbid mental disorder and substance abuse also preceded suicide in more cases (38%, 19-57%) than controls (6%, 0-13%). The population attributable fraction for mental disorder ranged from 47-74% in the seven studies in which it could be calculated. The effects of particular disorders and sociological variables have been insufficiently studied to draw clear conclusions.
The results indicated that mental disorder was the most strongly associated variable of those that have been studied. Further studies should focus on specific disorders and psychosocial factors. Suicide prevention strategies may be most effective if focused on the treatment of mental disorders.
The Middle East has changed clearly, substantially, and dramatically during the last decade. Yet scholarly and public understanding lags far behind these events. This book explains why the previous era came to end, giving an historical and political summation of the region. Three interlinked themes are crucial to the book. First, a reinterpretation of the era of upheaval the Middle East has just passed through. During that period, many Arabs believed that some leader, country, or radical movement would unite the region, solving all its problems. Second, an evaluation of how the historical experience of the period between the 1940s and the 1990s undermined the old system, making change necessary. Third, an analysis of the region today that helps explain future developments, in what the author terms the Era of Reluctant Pragmatism, as the Middle Eastern societies decide their relationships to the West.
This book attempts to shed light on suicide missions and provide answers to the questions we all ask. Are these the actions of aggressive religious zealots and unbridled, irrational radicals or is there a logic driving those behind them? Are their motivations religious or has Islam provided a language to express essentially political causes? How can the perpetrators remain so lucidly effective in the face of certain death? And do these disparate attacks have something like a common cause? It focuses on four main instances: the Kamikaze, missions carried out by the Tamil Tigers in the civil war in Sri Lanka, the Lebanese and Palestinian groups in the Middle East, and the al-Qaeda 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. For more than two years, the authors have pursued an unprejudiced inquiry, investigating organizers and perpetrators alike of this extraordinary social phenomenon. Close comparisons between a whole range of cases raise challenging further questions: If suicide missions are so effective, why are they not more common? If killing is what matters, why not stick to 'ordinary' violent means? Or, if dying is what matters, why kill in the process?
Many of the key actors in the 9/11 drama articulated their grievances using archaic religious language. But the very fact that the code involved is ancient while the behaviour that needs to be explained is recent suggests the inadequacy of causal theories that overemphasize the religious element. This chapter examines whether non-religious motives may well have been predominant in the 9/11 mission. To pursue this suggestion, the inquiry is divided into two parts, discussing first the perpetrators and then the instigators and supervisors of the plot.
This article dismisses the terminology of ‘suicide‐bombing’ used to describe the acts of mass murdering committed by Muslim fundamentalists worldwide, posits the Japanese Kamikaze as a control group to depict the nature of this terrorism and coins the term of Islamikaze in consequence. This essay first pieces together the information about the places where these terrorists are trained, and then analyses the psychological and doctrinal make‐up of these groups and individuals, with an emphasis on the jihad and self‐sacrifice that have taken root in certain Islamic traditions. This piece concludes with practical policy guidelines to be adopted by countries who confront this brand of terrorism.
This monograph by Dr. Mohammed Hafez, a visiting assistant professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City and a Palestinian-American, is one of the most insightful sources of information of the phenomenon of martyrdom and suicide terrorism to date. Dr. Hafez takes the reader inside the culture that produces and edifies suicide terrorism by examining the motives of organizations and of individuals who choose to die as well as explains the societal dynamics that have produced a virtual cult of death.
Although Hafez briefly describes a history of the use of suicide missions stemming from biblical times to anti-colonial struggles and modern warfare, the focus of the monograph is post 2000 Israel and the Occupied Territories. Hafez describes in great detail how the organizations choose bombers or conversely how individuals choose the organizations. He argues that this crucial period in the Israeli Palestinian struggle (post 2000) witnessed the shift from religious organizations to secular groups using suicide terror. He further explains the difference in recruitment patterns between the two groups.
Hafez suggests that Hamas and the Islamic Jihad have five criteria for selecting potential bombers: they must be pious; they must be able to blend in with Israeli civilians; they must be adults over the age of 18 and usually but not always unmarried; they must have a clean record, free from suspicion and not likely to be under surveillance for previous acts of militancy; and finally, they should not be the sole breadwinners of the family (p. 21).
Additionally, Manufacturing Human Bombs provides a detailed explanation of which Qur'anic verses have been manipulated to justify suicide terror while also doing a great service to scholars who are not native speakers of Arabic in translating some of the martyrs' last will and testament statements and their videos as well as pamphlets by radical preachers (the appendicies include valuable information about the number of attacks, profiles of the militant organizations, an a useful section recommending readings for further research). Of particular interest to this reviewer is that Hafez substantiates the theoretical claims advanced in earlier analyses (Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: the Allure of Suicide Terror [2005]) wherein secular groups adopted suicide terrorism to compete with their Islamic rivals in the factional struggle for public support. He writes: "In interviews with Fatah members and those with direct access to some of Fatah's militants in the West Bank, I was told that AMB (the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade) adopted suicide bombings because other factions seemed to be outperforming them. . . . I was repeatedly told that that Hamas viewed the uprising as "political theater" orchestrated by the PA (Palestinian Authority) to achieve a final settlement with Israel. . . . By adopting suicide bombings, Hamas seemed to be taking the lead in liberating Palestine. One of the Fatah militants termed this development 'healthy competition'" (pp. 29–30).
Another strength of Hafez's analysis is that he has been able to directly access statements about leaders' and individual bombers' perspectives on suicide terror, claiming that even the most militant and religious Islamic organizations are driven by fairly rational and instrumentalist motives. For the leaders, suicide bombs are a way of leveling the playing field, in other words, a religiously militant response to an asymmetric allocation of power and resources. Significantly, unlike other scholars, Hafez has not dismissed the role played by religion in justifying and sustaining the phenomenon and thus stays closer to the empirical realities of the case as compared to other works on the subject. He warns that "we cannot draw a straight causal line between religious revivalism and suicide bombings, however Islamic fundamentalism created a context in which religious appeals and symbolism resonate much more readily than in previous decades." (p. 35)
However, there are some limitations in Hafez's analysis. He does not go far enough in asserting that the organizations' competition might be less than healthy or cooperative. Indeed, he misses a point that economics and community approval may drive the competition among the militant organizations. In fact, the competition might itself explain a deteriorating political situation and an increasing lethality of the attacks as groups attempt to outdo each other in a process I refer to as...
Despite growing evidence to the contrary, it is still widely assumed that suicide terrorists are not actually suicidal. However, this review supports recent studies which suggest the opposite, and presents initial evidence that much like other suicidal individuals, many suicide terrorists appear to be driven by clinically suicidal risk factors, including: (1) the desire to escape the world they live in, (2) the desire to escape moral responsibility for their actions, (3) the inability to cope with a perceived crisis, and (4) a sense of low self-worth. By establishing the links between suicide terrorism and suicidality, scholars may be able to better understand the nature of these violent attacks and develop more effective ways to stop them.
Previous research comparing rampage shooters in the U.S. and volunteer suicide bombers in the Middle East appears to be virtually non-existent. When these two types of suicidal killers have been mentioned in the same context, it has primarily been to dismiss any possible connections. Rampage shooters are generally assumed to be mentally unbalanced, while suicide bombers are seen as extreme, but rational, political actors. However, this review explores the possibility that the primary differences between the two types of killers are cultural, not individual, and that in terms of their underlying psychology and motivation, they are actually quite similar. In both cases, substantial evidence indicates that these perpetrators of murder–suicide share many of the following characteristics: (1) they had troubled childhoods, (2) they lived in oppressive social environments, (3) they suffered from low self-esteem, (4) they were triggered by a personal crisis, (5) they were seeking revenge, and (6) they were seeking fame and glory.
For years, it has been widely agreed on that suicide terrorists are not suicidal individuals, and that behaviorally, they are more similar to noble soldiers who are willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause. However, upon closer examination, it appears that the foundation of this conventional wisdom is extraordinarily shaky. There are many reasons to think that both event-based and psychological risk factors for suicide may drive the behavior of suicide terrorists. Furthermore, there is growing evidence that more than 75 individual suicide terrorists have exhibited these classic suicidal traits. Given the power that the stigma of suicide may have to deter future suicide terrorists, it is critical that governments, scholars, and practitioners examine this issue once again.
Are suicide terrorists suicidal? A review of the worldwide literature on suicide terrorism uncovered five published empirical studies describing data collected from potential suicide terrorists or the surviving friends and families of deceased terrorists. The many discrepancies uncovered between suicide terrorists and other suicides on key factors known to underpin suicidality, suggest that such terrorists are not truly suicidal and should not be viewed as a subgroup of the general suicide population. Nonetheless, methods developed by suicidologists, such as the psychological autopsy, will help increase our understanding of the individual and group factors that underpin suicide terrorism.
Reply by the current authors to the comments made by M. Crenshaw (see record 2009-07218-002), A. Mintz and D. Brule (see record 2009-07218-003), F. M. Moghaddam (see record 2009-07218-004), M. Bloom (see record 2009-07218-006) and J. Victoroff (see record 2009-07218-007) on the original article (see record 2009-07218-001). Responses to the authors' target article afford a welcome opportunity to discuss fundamental issues in terrorism research, related to substantive as well as philosophical and methodological concerns. Some of the comments offered expand the scope of the discussion and address important levels of analysis that, even though falling beyond the scope of our specific contribution, might well be included in a multifaceted analysis of suicidal terrorism. Other comments set the occasion for clarifying aspects of our analysis that may have been obscure, yet others stimulate a dialogue about the role of theory, data, and policy recommendations in a domain of phenomena as refractory to controlled empirical investigation as is terrorism. The authors' target article addresses the motivational bases of suicidal terrorism on the individual level of analysis. In other words, we considered how individuals’ quest for significance, affected by their personal traumas, humiliations, and perceived opportunities for glory, facilitates their embracement of an ideology that touts suicide and the the killing of others as the path to personal greatness.
Cutting the Fuse offers a wealth of new knowledge about the origins of suicide terrorism and strategies to stop it. Robert A. Pape and James K. Feldman have examined every suicide terrorist attack worldwide from 1980 to 2009, and the insights they have gleaned from that data fundamentally challenge how we understand the root causes of terrorist campaigns today—and reveal why the War on Terror has been ultimately counterproductive. Through a close analysis of suicide campaigns by Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Israel, Chechnya, and Sri Lanka, the authors provide powerful new evidence that, contrary to popular and dangerously mistaken belief, only a tiny minority of these attacks are motivated solely by religion. Instead, the root cause is foreign military occupation, which triggers secular and religious people alike to carry out suicide attacks.
Cutting the Fuse calls for new, effective solutions that America and its allies can sustain for decades, relying less on ground troops in Muslim countries and more on offshore, over-the-horizon military forces along with political and economic strategies that empower local communities to stop terrorists in their midst.
This paper reviews current understandings of the psychology of suicide terrorism for psychiatrists and other mental health professionals to help them better understand this terrifying phenomenon. After discussing key concepts and definitions, the paper reviews both group and individual models for explaining the development of suicide terrorists, with an emphasis on "collective identity." Stressing the importance of social psychology, it emphasizes the "normality" and absence of individual psychopathology of the suicide bombers. It will discuss the broad range of terrorisms, but will particularly emphasize terrorism associated with militant Islam. The article emphasizes that comprehending suicide terrorism requires a multidisciplinary approach that includes anthropological, economic, historical, and political factors as well as psychological ones. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for research, policy, and prevention, reviewing the manner in which social psychiatric knowledge and understandings applied to this phenomenon in an interdisciplinary framework can assist in developing approaches to counter this deadly strategy.
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