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Précis of The Myth of Martyrdom:
What Really Drives Suicide Bombers,
Rampage Shooters, and Other
Self-Destructive Killers
Adam Lankford
Department of Criminal Justice, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL
35487-0320.
adam.lankford@ua.edu
http://adamlankford.com
Abstract: 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 behavioral and brain 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.
Keywords: coerced suicide; counterterrorism; murder-suicide; rampage shooters; school shooters; self-destructive behavior; suicide
prevention; suicide terrorism; survival instinct; workplace shooters
1. Introduction
In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, there was a
rush to explain the psychology of suicide terrorists. The
president of the United States suggested that Al Qaeda’s
hijackers were “evil-doers”and “cowards.”United States
Senator John Warner declared that “Those who would
commit suicide in their assaults on the free world are not
rational”(Atran 2003, p. 1535). Others insisted that the
9/11 attackers were “crazy,”“lunatics,”and “monsters”
(Ellis 2002; Pearson 2001).
Fortunately, many scholars attempted to improve the
scientific accuracy of this discourse, emphasizing that com-
mentators should be wary of engaging in the “fundamental
attribution error”(Atran 2003; Ellis 2003). This refers to
the perceptual trap human beings often fall into, whereby
they attribute the behavior of other people to who they
are –their disposition, their personality –while ignoring
the critical influence of social and situational factors.
When we do bad things, we usually understand that
context, misfortune, and pressure contributed to our
actions; when strangers do bad things, we often assume
that they are inherently bad people. So even though it
may have been comforting to dismiss Mohamed Atta and
his fellow hijackers as some sort of crazy fanatics, most
scholars wisely counseled against it.
Instead, many built their explanations of suicide terror-
ists on the leading theories and research from social psy-
chology. Hassan (2001) claimed that these attackers share
a deep belief in religious fundamentalism and become
completely ideologically committed to engaging in acts of
martyrdom. Atran (2003) explained the psychology of
ADAM LANKFORD is Associate Professor of Criminal
Justice at The University of Alabama. He is the author
of numerous peer-reviewed articles and two books on
criminal and terrorist behavior, including The Myth of
Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers,
Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), which was recognized as a
“Book to Watch Out For”by The New Yorker and
named to Foreign Policy’s list of “What to Read in
2013.”From 2003 to 2008, he helped coordinate
Senior Executive Anti-Terrorism Forums for high-
ranking security personnel in conjunction with the
U.S. State Department.
BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2014) 37, 351–393
doi:10.1017/S0140525X13001581
© Cambridge University Press 2014 0140-525X/14 $40.00 351
suicide terrorists by citing Milgram’s(1963) famous exper-
iment on obedience to authority, along with past research
on institutional manipulation, group indoctrination, and
collective loyalty and commitment. Pape (2005) focused
on the strategic logic of suicide bombings at the organiz-
ational level, and the opportunity this combat tactic pro-
vides to individuals who hope to see their side win.
Townsend (2007) stressed the importance of group pro-
cesses, systematic indoctrination, and shared altruism, reli-
gious beliefs, and murderous intent. And Post et al. (2009)
emphasized collective identity, charismatic leadership, de-
individuation, and ingroup–outgroup enmity as the
primary factors that produce suicide attackers.
These scholars, along with many others, each contribu-
ted to our understanding of the contextual factors which
help shape the behavior of suicide terrorists. However, I
argue that by insisting that these attackers are psychologi-
cally normal, not suicidal, and driven by self-sacrifice,
they may have gone too far.
Consider this brief sample of their statements:
.“Stressing the importance of social psychology, [our
research] emphasizes the ‘normality’and absence of indi-
vidual psychopathology of the suicide bombers”(Post
et al. 2009, p. 13)
.“Overall, suicide terrorists exhibit no socially dysfunc-
tional attributes (fatherless, friendless, or jobless) or
suicidal symptoms”(Atran 2003, p. 1537)
.“the uncomfortable fact is that suicide terrorists are far
more normal than many of us would like to believe”(Pape
2005, p. 211)
.“most suicide bombers are psychologically normal”
(Hassan 2010, p. 190)
.“virtually all suicide bombers are psychologically
stable”(Brym 2007, p. 40)
.“suicide terrorists are not truly suicidal”(Townsend
2007, p. 49)
Past scholars have also claimed that suicide terrorists are:
.“not significantly different from other rebels or sol-
diers around the world who are willing to engage in high-
risk activism out of a sense of duty and obligation”(Hafez
2006,p.6)
.“much like ordinary soldiers with a strong sense of
duty and a willingness to sacrifice all for the common
good”(Pape 2005, p. 218)
.“qualitatively similar to countless people throughout
history who have given their lives for a higher cause”
(Pastor 2004, p. 704)
Although I initially agreed with these statements, I have
come to doubt their accuracy. Many commentators have
been right to be wary of committing the fundamental attri-
bution error, right that suicide terrorists are not “crazy
lunatics”or “monsters,”and right that these attackers are
significantly influenced by their contexts, as most people
are. But the evidence I have uncovered suggests that
these attackers are suicidal in a variety of ways, and that
they are not the psychological equivalent of others who
are willing to sacrifice their lives for a cause.
By contrast, it appears that suicidal motives, mental
health problems, and personal crises are the most
significant reason why fewer than 300 suicide terrorists
usually blow themselves up each year. These factors may
be what make them behaviorally different from the more
than 90 million people and tens of thousands of terrorists
who share their ideology and belief that suicide attacks
are “often”or “sometimes”justified, but who do not
choose to die (Pew Research Center 2007–2010).
In my book, The Myth of Martyrdom: What Really
Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other
Self-Destructive Killers (Lankford 2013c), I present
results from 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. I studied suicide terrorists who com-
mitted the most deadly attacks and suicide terrorists who
committed the least deadly attacks. Based on my findings,
I propose that in terms of their behavior and psychology,
suicide terrorists share far more in common with people
who commit suicide and murder-suicide than with people
who selflessly sacrifice their lives for a collective cause.
I hope that, after seeing the evidence for themselves,
other scholars in the behavioral and brain sciences will
apply their expertise to this critically important subject.
There are many exciting new ways that this research
could be extended, some of which I have envisioned,
others which I may barely understand. Through our com-
bined efforts, we can potentially help policymakers and
security officials predict and prevent suicide attacks more
effectively than ever before. And even more ambitiously,
perhaps by furthering our knowledge of this incredibly
extreme behavior, we can take another step towards truly
understanding the human survival instinct.
2. The view that suicide terrorists are
psychologically normal and not suicidal
In retrospect, it is easy to understand why most scholars
initially believed that suicide terrorists are psychologically
normal and not suicidal. After all:
1. Most commentators who have claimed otherwise
seem to be committing the fundamental attribution error.
2. Past research has shown that most people who carry
out violence for organizations are socially influenced but
psychologically normal.
3. Most organizations specifically prohibit mentally dis-
turbed people from joining, so they can avoid potential
security risks.
4. Most people who personally knew past suicide attack-
ers reported that they were psychologically normal and
driven by self-sacrifice.
5. Initial studies of suicide terrorists did not uncover any
evidence of psychopathology or suicidality.
I agree that these points are each true. However, I question
their relevance and application to suicide terrorists’under-
lying psychology.
It is certainly accurate that controlled experiments have
shown that ordinary people can be transformed into violent
actors through a series of social psychological techniques
(Milgram 1963;Sherifetal.1961;Zimbardo1972). And in
accordance with past studies on mass killing and institutional
violence (Browning 1998;Staub1989;Waller2002), previous
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352 BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2014) 37:4
research on terrorists has found that the vast majority do not
have personal pathologies or psychological disorders –they
were relatively ordinary before they were recruited and
indoctrinated by terrorist organizations (Gunaratna 2002;
Hoffman 1998; Williams 2002). But it is simultaneously poss-
ible that this past research is valuable and accurate, and that it
does not explain suicide terrorists. Atran (2003) seems to
have overlooked this possibility, concluding that because
Milgram (1963) showed that “extreme behaviors may be eli-
cited and rendered commonplace by particular historical,
political, social, and ideological contexts,”suicide terrorists
must be “nonpathological individuals”who “respond to
novel situational factors”(Atran 2003, p. 1536).
As far as I know, there are no replications or extensions
of the Milgram (1963), Sherif et al. (1961), or Zimbardo
(1972) experiments which show that many psychologically
healthy people can be convinced to commit suicide to
serve a greater good. Following orders to harm others
seems very different from following orders to kill oneself.
Similarly, Post et al. (2009) asserted that “Understanding
the psychology of suicide terrorism must necessarily be
rooted in an understanding of the psychology of terrorism”
(p. 18), and then inferred that the psychological normalcy
of regular terrorists denotes a similar psychological nor-
malcy among suicide attackers. But upon closer examin-
ation, it appears there are fundamental psychological
differences between the tens of thousands of terrorists
who risk their lives for the cause –but fight to survive –
and the tiny percentage who intentionally blow themselves
up. In fact, many suicide bombers are barely terrorist
members at all –they are community members with no
prior terrorist experience or affiliation who are only there
to carry out suicide attacks (Pedahzur 2005). And they
largely constitute a self-selected sample, having chosen to
volunteer for suicide missions, unlike the vast majority of
their peers. Of course, by definition, self-selection suggests
a difference.
Interviews of other members of terrorist organizations
conducted by Berko (2007) and Merari (2010) showed
further differences between them and suicide attackers.
Notably, when asked if they had ever considered carrying
out a “martyrdom operation,”most regular terrorists and
terrorist dispatchers said no.
In general, when assessing whether people are lying, it
helps to consider whether their statements benefit them
or not. Historians have referred to this as the “criterion
of embarrassment,”and the United States legal system
has a similar classification for admissions people make
against their own self-interest. The rationale is that when
a speaker “reveals something incriminating, embarrassing,
or otherwise damaging…the lack of incentive to make a
damaging statement is an indication of the statement’s
reliability”(U.S. Legal 2011).
When regular terrorists say they would not intentionally
die for the cause, their statements directly contradict terror-
ist propaganda and the claims about total commitment
made by their leaders. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that
they are lying, because in their social context, admitting
that they would not volunteer for “martyrdom operations”
is almost like saying that they don’t have what it takes to
be heroes. Many seemed almost ashamed or defensive
about their admissions, and some offered excuses (Merari
2010). Overall, it appears that most terrorists are very differ-
ent from those who self-select for suicide missions.
Another well-established principle that may have been
applied to suicide terrorists rather prematurely is that
organizations specifically prohibit mentally disturbed
people from joining. In general, this is often true. But the
founder of the CIA’s Center for the Analysis of Personality
and Political Behavior and current chair of the American
Psychiatric Association’s Task Force for National and Inter-
national Terrorism and Violence may have gone too far
when he stated –in reference to the 9/11 hijackers –“terror-
ist groups make it a point to expel, or not to admit, emotion-
ally unstable people. After all, they’d be a security risk. You
wouldn’t want an emotionally unstable person in the Green
Berets; you wouldn’t want an emotionally unstable person in
a terrorist operation or cell”(Weaver 2006).
This view has been repeated by experts around the world,
and at first, it sounds very logical. There is no doubt that
many organizations screen applicants for mental health
prior to entry. And if this claim is accurate, scholars could
reasonably argue that most suicide bombers must be psy-
chologically normal, because if they were not, they would
never get the organizational support they usually rely upon.
Despite extensive research, however, I was unable to
find compelling evidence that terrorist organizations actu-
ally behave in this manner. Although Brym (2007),
Hassan (2010), Post et al. (2009), and Taarnby (2003)
each make this claim, only Post et al. (2009) provide any
support for it. They purport to have confirmed that terrorist
organizations prioritize the mental health of their members
based on the example of just one terrorist –not a suicide
attacker –who was sent to a psychiatrist after struggling
with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms.
I have come to believe that the security risks of using
emotionally unstable people for suicide attacks have been
overstated. Like anyone handling a potentially dangerous
substance or weapon, terrorist organizations naturally take
precautions to minimize risks. They keep most suicide
attackers in the dark about their operational priorities; infor-
mation is only shared on a need-to-know basis (Gunaratna
2002; Hassan 2001; Williams 2002). They certainly do not
take a suicidal recruit, give him directions to their leaders’
houses, give him a map of all hidden weapons caches, and
then give him that month’s schedule of upcoming attacks.
In fact, a number of past suicide bombers have been
arrested and successfully interrogated, and their sponsoring
organizations have not simply crumbled because of it. And
even if someone is emotionally unstable, that does not
mean he or she cannot be strategically used. In the vast
majority of cases, it makes more sense for terrorist organiz-
ations to use their most expendable assets to carry out
suicide attacks, because they can only use them once.
On rare occasions, recruiters have openly acknowledged
this. In interviews with Berko (2007), a suicide bomber dis-
patcher known as Mahmoud admitted that “I asked them to
find me guys who were desperate and sad”(p. 1). Berko
(2007) adds that Mahmoud sought “social nonentities …
men and women who have trouble finding themselves,
sometimes influenced by anger and bitterness at their mar-
ginality”(p. 7). Along similar lines, a Palestinian Authority
general told Stern (2003) that the profile of a typical
Hamas suicide bomber was:
Young, often a teenager. He is mentally immature …He can’t
find a job. He has no options, and there is no social safety net to
help him …He has no girlfriend or fiancée …No means for
him to enjoy life in any way. Life has no meaning but pain …
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BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2014) 37:4 353
He feels he has lost everything …He goes to the local
mosque…Hamas members are there and notice him looking
anxious, worried, and depressed …Gradually, they will begin
to recruit him. (Stern 2003, p. 50)
But again, these accounts of suicide bombers were the
exception, not the norm.
In fact, another major reason for the scholarly consensus
that suicide terrorists are psychologically normal, not
suicidal, and driven by self-sacrifice, is that this was the
most common description offered by those who personally
knew them. For instance, from 1996 to 1999, an inter-
national relief worker interviewed many dispatchers,
friends, and family members of deceased suicide
bombers. She also reportedly interviewed some failed
suicide attackers themselves. Her conclusion, which was
published in The New Yorker just two months after 9/11,
was that “None of the suicide bombers –they ranged in
age from eighteen to thirty-eight –conformed to the
typical profile of the suicidal personality. None of them
were uneducated, desperately poor, simple-minded, or
depressed …They all seemed to be entirely normal
members of their families. They were polite and serious,
and in their communities they were considered to be
model youths”(Hassan 2001, para. 14). Her later publi-
cations seem to indicate that this description was mostly
based on second-hand accounts: “Almost all were described
as courageous, resolute, and serious with no evidence of
brainwashing, coercion, or psychological problems”
(Hassan 2006, p. 39).
Similarly, Townsend (2007) conducted a review of five
“empirical reports”on the subject: three that depended
largely upon interviews of the deceased suicide terrorist’s
friends and family members, and two that were based on
interviews of regular terrorists, not suicide terrorists. As
she concluded, “The results of [her] review strongly
suggest that suicide terrorists are not truly suicidal, and
that attempting to find commonalities between suicide ter-
rorists and others who die by suicide is likely to be an
unhelpful path for any discipline wishing to further under-
standing of suicidal behavior”(p. 47).
Interviews can yield valuable information, and the state-
ments of those who knew suicide attackers can be enligh-
tening. In the absence of other information, they are
sometimes all we have to go on. However, even when
sources provide consistent answers, that does not necess-
arily mean they are reliable. When it comes to suicide
attacks, the vast majority of terrorists, family members,
and suicide terrorists have insisted that these are actually
“martyrdom operations”inspired by the desire to sacrifice
for God and the cause, and that those who carry them
out are mentally healthy. But their statements often
appear laden with terrorist propaganda. As Hassan (2001)
acknowledged, “When they spoke, they all tended to use
the same phrases”(para. 14). Their statements passed
neither the “criterion of embarrassment”nor the “admis-
sion against interest”tests, and as I outline in Chapter 2,
there are a number of reasons to doubt their veracity.
Afinal reason why many scholars believe that suicide terror-
ists are psychologically normal and not suicidal is that initial
studies did not uncover any evidence of psychopathology.
One widely cited example comes from a prominent
scholar and former adviser for two presidential campaigns
who purported to have conducted the most “compre-
hensive and reliable survey now available”of all 462
suicide terrorists from 1980 to 2003 (Pape 2005, p. 202).
He found:
no documented mental illness, such as depression, psychosis, or
past suicide attempts …no evidence of major criminal behavior
…[and] not a single report that a suicide attacker was gay, an
adulterer, or otherwise living in a way that would bring shame
in a traditional society…Rather, the uncomfortable fact is
that suicide terrorists are far more normal than many of us
would like to believe. (Pape 2005, pp. 210–11)
By logging every suicide attack they could find from 1980 to
2003, Pape (2005) and his research team created a valuable
database that can be used to assess suicide terrorism on a
global level. And even more impressively, in the years
that followed, they expanded their database to include
more than 2,200 attacks from 1980 to 2011.
But this research seems better on breadth than depth,
and does not appear to have accurately captured the psy-
chology of suicide attackers. The U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention’s data indicate that
approximately 5% of the population is depressed –and
this percentage may be even higher in certain war-torn con-
texts. If suicideterrorists are representative of the population
at large, the chances that none of the 462 suicide terrorists
from this sample were depressed would be approximately
1 in 19,574,665,823. It seems implausible that any group
of 462 people, anywhere on the globe, would fit the descrip-
tion of what this study found: zero members who were
depressed, major criminals, gay, adulterers, or living with
shame. The United States Congress would not pass this
test; I doubt a large monastery would.
The lesson I draw from this is that in many cases, we
know next to nothing about an individual suicide terrorist.
And for many of the incidents in Pape’s database, only
the suicide terrorist’s gender, organizational sponsor, and
attack details were available. We should be careful to
avoid assuming that their mental health problems will be
widely reported and easily identifiable –and that the
absence of such reports indicates their psychologically
normalcy.
3. Comparisons with people who commit
conventional suicide
One of the first post-9/11 studies to suggest a significant
connection between conventional suicide and suicide ter-
rorism was authored by Lester et al. (2004), who rec-
ommended that “if detailed biographies of terrorists and
suicide bombers were to be collected, evidence might
well be found of a high frequency of risk factors for
suicide”(p. 292). In response to this call, I conducted an
in-depth review of primary sources, such as suicide notes,
manifestos, diary entries, internet posts, love letters, and
martyrdom videos, as well as secondary sources, such as
previous scholarly research, government reports, electronic
news and video archives, existing data sets, and legal docu-
ments. I present the results throughout the book, but par-
ticularly in Chapter 3 and Appendix A.
I found evidence of more than 130 suicide terrorists who
appeared to have risk factors for conventional suicide: 44
with depression, PTSD, or other mental health problems;
12 with serious physical injuries or disabilities; 66 who
had suffered the unexpected death of a loved one or
close friend; and 104 who had struggled with a precipitating
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354 BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2014) 37:4
crisis event. This is certainly not an exhaustive list; there
may be thousands of suicide terrorists whose secret
struggles still remain hidden. But obtaining more infor-
mation about these attackers’lives is a step in the right
direction.
The suicide terrorists’personal crises included divorce
and adultery scandals, unwanted pregnancies, major job
problems, serious health problems, and the death of a
loved one. Other suicide attackers, who could not be quan-
tified, had reportedly been raped or sexually assaulted,
addicted to heroin or other drugs, or struggling with
other physical or mental health problems. Of course, not
everyone who has these problems becomes suicidal. But
past research has identified very similar personal crises
among those who commit conventional suicide, including
the loss of employment, economic distress, family problems,
romantic problems, poor health, and the death of a loved
one (Durkheim 1897; Farber 1968; Maris et al. 2000).
In a number of these cases, there appeared to be a direct
cause-and-effect link between the crisis and the individual’s
decision to seek death. The crisis –and the individual’s sub-
sequent inability to cope –could help explain why many of
these people who had no prior terrorism experience or ter-
rorist affiliation suddenly volunteered to blow themselves
up. Something must have changed in their lives, and the
crisis event seems like the most obvious factor. For
example, Wafa Idris, the first Palestinian female suicide
bomber, suffered a miscarriage that left her unable to get
pregnant again, and she was subsequently divorced by
her husband. Intensely shamed, she returned home to
live with her mother, and then eventually blew herself
up. Although this is purely speculative, it seems possible
that if not for the miscarriage and divorce, she might still
be alive today.
A reasonable question is whether these mental health
problems and personal crises are more common among
suicide terrorists than other terrorists. Merari’s(2010)
interviews and psychological assessments of preemptively
arrested suicide bombers, regular terrorists, and organizers
of suicide attacks suggest so. Although his sample was rela-
tively small (n= 41), his research team found significantly
more suicidal tendencies, depressive tendencies, PTSD,
previous (non-terrorist) suicide attempts, and dependent/
avoidant personality types among the suicide bombers
(Merari 2010). The regular terrorists and organizers of
suicide attacks genuinely appeared more psychologically
normal. I provide a detailed analysis of this study in
Chapter 3.
I also uncovered a number of direct quotes from suicide
terrorists that revealed their psychological pain. Given the
“criterion of embarrassment”and “admission against inter-
est”tests discussed earlier –and the powerful stigmas
against admitting mental health problems in these attack-
ers’social contexts –their statements appear credible.
For example, Umar Abdulmutallab, who attempted to
blow up an airplane over Detroit on Christmas day 2009,
had previously posted online that: “i am in a situation
where i do not have a friend…i have no one to speak
too, no one to consult, no one to support me and i feel
depressed and lonely. i do not know what to do”(Greene
2009, para. 18). Bryant Neal Vinas confessed that after
dropping out of the army because it was too “mentally over-
whelming,”he ultimately volunteered for a suicide attack in
Pakistan because he was “having difficult time with the
altitude. I was getting very sick, so I felt that it would be
easier”(Neumeister & Hays 2012, para. 23). And a
female suicide bomber interviewed by Berko (2007)
revealed that after she missed what she thought was her
last chance for marriage, “my life wasn’t worth anything
and my father wouldn’t let me marry the boy I wanted
to, so I found a Fatah operative in Jenin and volunteered,
to get back at my father”(p. 1).
Another example I recently discovered comes from FBI
records of an intercepted phone call between Shaker Masri
and his girlfriend. Just days after she dumped him, he
decided to become a suicide bomber. And then he
seemed to melt down over the phone, exclaiming “I, for
myself, I cannot; I cannot; I cannot; I cannot, cannot,
cannot. I do not; I do not. Life is not worth living for me.
I cannot enjoy life. I have not enjoyed it since I was eigh-
teen. I have not enjoyed life since I was a child. I lost
that innocence. I need to regain it back”(Parker 2010,
p. 17).
In the majority of cases, the suicide terrorists did not
make admissions of this sort –or if they did, I could not
find evidence of them. Of course, this does not necessarily
mean they were psychologically normal or selflessly sacrifi-
cing their lives for an ideological cause. After all, even if
these attackers were suicidal, they would have a very
good reason to lie: Given the ability to control their
public reputation through the words they utter, most
people would rather be remembered as heroic martyrs
than suicidal cowards.
In some cases, there seemed to be a clear discrepancy
between the ways suicide terrorists described their own
mental health and the evidence from other sources. For
instance, in the note left behind by Nicky Reilly, a.k.a.
Mohamad Abdulaziz Rashid Saeed, he insisted, “I have
not been brainwashed or indoctrinated. I am not insane.
I am not doing it to escape a life of problems or hardships.
I am doing what God wants from his mujahideen”(Reilly
2008). But after his attempted attack,psychiatrists
reported that Reilly had an IQ of 83, was thought to
have the mental age of a 10-year-old, and suffered from
Asperger’s syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder,
among other psychological problems. His family was also
a disaster: His parents separated before he was born, his
stepfather was a convicted heroin dealer, and his younger
brother had been sent to prison for 6 years after robbing
a man and beating him unconscious. And Reilly had pre-
viously attempted suicide by intentionally overdosing on
drugs, stabbing himself in the stomach, and slitting his
own wrists.
Mohamed Atta, ringleader of the 19 hijackers who struck
on 9/11 and the first pilot to crash into the World Trade
Center towers, also seemed quite comparable to people
who commit conventional suicide, although he never
admitted it. In Chapter 4, I present results from my
psychological autopsy of Atta, which uncovered evidence
that he struggled with at least four risk factors for suicide:
(1) social isolation, (2) depression, (3) guilt and shame,
and (4) hopelessness (see also Lankford 2012a).
Atta appears to have displayed 8 of the 11 symptoms of
depression identified by the National Institute of Mental
Health (2009): (1) persistent sad, anxious, or “empty”
mood; (2) feelings of hopelessness, pessimism; (3) feelings
of guilt, worthlessness, helplessness; (4) loss of interest or
pleasure in hobbies and activities; (5) decreased energy,
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BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2014) 37:4 355
fatigue, being “slowed down”; (6) appetite and/or weight
changes; (7) thoughts of death or suicide, suicide attempts;
and (8) restlessness, irritability. For comparison’s sake,
many clinically depressed people exhibit fewer symptoms
than Atta did. Among the details that stand out: Atta had
struggled with social isolation since childhood; insisted
that “joy kills the heart;”avoided laughing whenever poss-
ible; condemned fun, music, and delicious food; com-
plained about needing to eat to stay alive; wrote an angry
last will and testament at age 27; was overcome by shame
about the subject of sex; and lamented, “how much time
have we wasted in our lives?”
Past research on suicide pacts suggests that every
member of a group need not be suicidal, at least in the con-
ventional sense, for them all to kill themselves (Maris et al.
2000). So one possibility is that some of the other 9/11
hijackers were suicidal in unconventional or indirectly
self-destructive ways. Nevertheless, a preliminary review
presented in Chapter 4 reveals similarities between some
of them and others who commit suicide for conventional
reasons. For example, Tawfiq bin Attash, who volunteered
to be one of the hijackers but failed to gain entry to the
United States, had lost both his brother and his lower
right leg in a traumatic battle in Afghanistan. Marwan al-
Shehhi, who crashed the second plane into the World
Trade Center, had suffered from the unexpected death of
his father when he was 19 years old, had struggled to
cope, and had withdrawn from his family. Hani Hanjour,
who crashed into the U.S. Pentagon, was apparently
crippled by insecurity and failure, which had depressed
him. Pilot Ziad Jarrah, who intended to strike the U.S.
Capitol Building but failed, had complained about being
“dissatisfied with his life”and had insisted that he “didn’t
want to leave Earth in a natural way”(McDermott 2005,
p. 206; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon
the United States 2004). In addition, hijacker Wail al
Shehri reportedly “fell into a deep depression”in late
1999 that was so bad that he had to leave his job and
seek medical treatment: “His friends say it was not just
depression, but perhaps even a suicidal tendency”
(Sennott 2002, para. 13). And hijacker Ahmed al Nami’s
behavior apparently became so strange that his family
feared a “bipolar disorder”(Sennott 2002, para. 18). Less
is known about the others, but there is certainly sufficient
reason to question their mental health.
4. Comparisons with people who commit
murder-suicide
Within the broader category of murder-suicide, there is a
subset of offenders who seem to be a natural comparison
to suicide terrorists: rampage, workplace, and school shoo-
ters who similarly carry out premeditated, mass murder-
suicide attacks that kill innocent bystanders, before killing
themselves. Like certain suicide terrorists, some of these
mass shooters planned their attacks for months or years
before finally striking, and some of them also left behind
notes or explanations in which they claimed to be fighting
for a cause.
On the surface, perhaps the most significant difference
between suicide terrorists and suicidal rampage, workplace,
and school shooters is the role of organizations: suicide ter-
rorists usually work with them, whereas mass shooters
almost always act on their own. However, as reviewed
earlier, many suicide terrorists are self-selected and
decide for themselves that they are ready to die. For
these attackers, the organization may provide rationaliz-
ations for violence, suggested targets, and the explosive
device. But those who act alone can obtain these same
things, just from different sources. They may get their
rationalizations for violence from radical websites, their
ideas for targets from news coverage of previous attacks,
and their weapons from local shops.
To begin identifying other similarities and differences
between these types of attackers, I conducted the first com-
bined quantitative assessment of suicide terrorists and
rampage, workplace, and school shooters who attempted
suicide, which I detail in Chapter 6 (see also Lankford
2013a). The study was of all suicide attacks that could be
identified from previous scholarship, government reports,
or media databases, occurred in the United States
between 1990 and 2010, yielded a minimum of two casual-
ties, and were not primarily domestic in nature (targeting
family members or significant others). The FBI definition
was used to assign attacks to the terrorist category, and
all remaining public attacks that did not land in the
school or workplace categories were designated as
rampage shootings. The resulting dataset included 81
suicide attacks in total: 12 suicide terrorist strikes, 18
rampage shootings, 16 school shootings, and 35 workplace
shootings.
For details about each attacker’s life, I searched primary
source documents, previous scholarship, government
reports, and media databases. This data collection
method has been valuable for research on similar attackers
in the past (Kelly 2010; Larkin 2009; Newman et al. 2004).
Overall, ANOVA, chi-square, and multinomial logistic
regression tests did not indicate that the pre-attack
struggles of suicide terrorists were significantly different
from the pre-attack struggles of rampage shooters and
school shooters who attempted suicide. All three types of
attackers appeared about equally likely to have struggled
with mental health problems, social marginalization,
family problems, work or school problems, and precipitat-
ing crisis events; almost equally likely to have prepared an
explanation or suicide note before striking; and almost
equally likely to have successfully ended up dead as a
result of their attacks. It was the workplace shooters who
seemed to be the most different type: their attacks
occurred almost twice as often, yielded about half as
many casualties, and appeared to be more directly linked
to grudges against specific targeted victims.
Beyond some expected differences in their rhetoric, the
biggest behavioral difference between the suicide terror-
ists, rampage shooters, and school shooters was their
method of suicide attempt. Most rampage and school shoo-
ters shot themselves in the head, but only one suicide ter-
rorist did this. It may be that the terrorist attackers were the
most concerned with disguising their suicidal intent, which
is more easily done by detonating an explosives-laden
suicide vest, provoking “suicide by cop,”or crashing an air-
plane at a high rate of speed. With these attack methods,
onlookers may be more apt to conclude that these attackers
did not want to die, they were just willing to die, in order to
accomplish their mission.
But if maximizing enemy fatalities was these suicide ter-
rorists’primary goal, they were not particularly good at it.
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356 BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2014) 37:4
With the exception of 9/11, suicide terrorist attacks in the
United States from 1990 to 2010 were actually less lethal
than rampage and school shootings involving suicide
attempts over the same period. This seems at odds with
the conventional wisdom that suicide terrorists are psycho-
logically normal attackers who sacrifice their lives for
mission success, while rampage and school shooters are
mentally unbalanced individuals who simply “snap”and
begin shooting.
Upon closer inspection, the similarities between these
various perpetrators of murder-suicide become even
more clear. There have been cases of suicide terrorists
who act and attack like suicidal mass shooters, and cases
of suicidal mass shooters who act and attack like typical
suicide terrorists. For instance, suicide terrorists Ali
Hassan Abu Kamal, who opened fire at the Empire State
building, Mir Aimal Kansi, who struck CIA headquarters,
Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, who attacked Los Angeles
International Airport, and Nidal Hasan, who struck the
Fort Hood Army base, each claimed to be driven by
the desire to serve their ideological cause. But much like
suicidal mass shooters, they were each struggling with
serious personal problems, attacked with firearms, and
apparently intended to die as a result of their attacks.
Abu Kamal shot himself in the head, while the other
three expected to be shot and killed by police, which
would constitute “suicide by cop.”On the other hand,
Virgina Tech shooter Seung Hui Cho referred to himself
as a “martyr”and claimed to be sacrificing his life for
God, which sounds very similar to the statements made
by Islamic suicide terrorists. And George Sodini reportedly
considered blowing himself up on a public bus –much like
a suicide bomber –a week before he opened fire on a Pitts-
burgh aerobics class and then shot himself in the head.
Similarly, when Sebastian Bosse was found after shooting
five people at his high school and then killing himself, he
had explosive devices strapped to his body. And perhaps
most dramatically, Columbine killers Eric Harris and
Dylan Klebold had fantasized about using suicide terrorist
tactics as well. Three years before 9/11, Harris stated that
he and Klebold would like to “hijack a hell of a lot of
bombs and crash a plane into NYC with us inside”(CNN
2001). This is eerily similar to what Al Qaeda’s 19 hijackers
eventually did, and suggests that these attackers may have
been attracted to similarly grandiose methods of suicide
due to their underlying psychological similarities.
Overall, a number of these attackers seemed to recog-
nize that by committing acts of mass murder-suicide
against random, innocent victims, they could combine the
only surefire way for an average person to become
famous with the only foolproof way to kill people and get
away with it. After years of feeling like a failure, loser,
victim, or outcast, they attempted to compensate through
a desperate grasp for attention, social recognition, fame,
and glory. But they also avoided the potential humiliation
of arrest, detainment, and criminal punishment by commit-
ting suicide before they were caught. For suicide terrorists,
this seems like one of those times when the terrorist organ-
ization’s priorities are the same as the suicidal individual’s.
Both want attention. The terrorist organization benefits
from publicity because its strategy is based on reaching as
many hearts and minds as possible, then rallying them to
the cause. And by filming martyrdom videos prior to their
attacks, suicide bombers become convinced that in death
they will be respected and worshipped, even though they
will not get to experience their glory in the physical
world. It should be emphasized that when it comes to
homicide, the desire for fame and glory is an extraordinarily
rare motive. The fact that it appears to be so common
among certain suicide terrorists, rampage shooters, and
school shooters seems to be another sign of their under-
lying similarities.
5. Comparisons with coerced, escapist, and
indirectly suicidal people
In Chapter 7, I propose that there are four basic types of
suicide terrorists: (1) conventional, (2) coerced, (3) escapist,
and (4) indirect (see also Lankford 2014). Conventional
suicide terrorists are comparable to people who commit
suicide for conventional reasons. Coerced suicide terrorists
become suicidal because they feel pressured and fear the
organizational consequences of not carrying out a suicide
attack. Escapist suicide terrorists become suicidal because
they fear being captured or punished by the enemy. And
indirect suicide terrorists become suicidal at an uncon-
scious level: they orchestrate their deaths in ways that dis-
guise their desire to die, even from themselves.
Because human psychology is so complex, it seems likely
that some attackers will defy perfect categorization and
thus be a combination of types. However, this typology
could be useful for quickly assessing an individual suicide
terrorist and identifying his or her primary motive for
seeking death, be it personal problems, pressure from
others, fear of an approaching enemy, or hidden self-
destructive urges. In Appendix C, I present a chart with
behavioral expectations and potential security countermea-
sures for each type.
To better understand the psychology of the coerced,
escapist, and indirect types, it may help to compare them
with people who commit suicide for similar reasons. For
instance, consider the famous kamikaze pilots of Japan,
who appear to have been long misunderstood. Atran
(2003) subscribes to the conventional wisdom, describing
them as “young, fairly well educated pilots who understood
that pursuing conventional warfare would likely end in
defeat. When collectively asked by Adm. Takijiro Onishi
to volunteer for ‘special attack’(tokkōtai)‘transcending
life and death,’all stepped forward, despite assurances
that refusal would carry no shame or punishment”
(p. 1535). By this view, the kamikaze pilots were greatly
influenced by social and situational factors, which inspired
them to sacrifice their lives for a noble cause.
This is what many of us were taught in school, and until
recently, I assumed it was accurate. But as renowned kami-
kaze expert Ohnuki-Tierney (2006) explains based on her
extensive research, when the tokkōtai program was insti-
tuted, “none of the professional soldiers who had graduated
from the naval and army academies volunteered”(p. 166).
Lacking volunteers, the military drafted 4,000 boys and
university students for this purpose. I contend that it was
not ideology, not group commitment, and not altruistic
self-sacrifice that led these pilots to carry out suicide
attacks; I believe the Japanese military used coercion
and brutality to essentially make them suicidal. In other
words, these boys may have been psychologically
normal prior to being drafted, but they quickly became
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BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2014) 37:4 357
psychologically compromised because of the crisis they
found themselves in, the way they were treated, and the
pressures upon them. In general, a recent meta-analysis
of 37 studies found that bullying greatly increases victims’
likelihood of suicidal behavior (Kim & Leventhal 2008).
Far worse pressures and mistreatment were present in
this case.
The military systematically broke new recruits with
regular beatings and abuse. As one would-be kamikaze
recalls, “‘training’took place day after day. I was struck
on the face so hard and frequently that my face was no
longer recognizable”(Ohnuki-Tierney 2006, p. 168).
Another explains, “I felt little desire to rush out and die
gloriously for some great cause. Like all the others, I was
overwhelmingly demoralized and intimidated …Anxiety
had left me exhausted yet too nervous for sleep …By the
first month’s end, many in our group were breaking
emotionally, beyond remedy. Continual pain, continual
humiliation, continual pressure. Endless stress! It could
not be endured forever”(Kuwahara & Allred 1957, pp.
29, 64). Because of these psychological pressures, 9 of 60
recruits in one unit actually killed themselves during train-
ing. However, the majority gave in and carried out their
kamikaze missions as intended. Many were deeply trauma-
tized and threatened with further punishment if they dis-
obeyed, which is why they decided to die.
In some sense, the kamikaze pilots may have had a
rational motive for suicide: they preferred death over
future pain. But I would emphasize that this is the under-
lying motive for most suicidal people, whether the pain
they want to avoid is already present or only anticipated,
and whether it is physical or psychological. As discussed
earlier, past suicidal people have killed themselves to
escape the psychological pain of loss of employment, econ-
omic distress, family problems, romantic problems, and the
death of a loved one, or the physical pain of living with
serious health problems (Durkheim 1897; Farber 1968;
Maris et al. 2000). Some of their suicidal decisions could
be considered rational as well.
I propose that, much like the kamikaze, many coerced
suicide terrorists may have been psychologically healthy
for most of their lives, but they became psychologically
compromised and made suicidal decisions because of the
abnormal pressures upon them. From the terrorist organiz-
ation’s perspective, levying these pressures makes a lot of
sense: If you need people to perform a task that only a
suicidal person would do –and you don’t have enough
suicidal individuals on hand –you should try to create
new ones. For instance, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, teen-
agers have been kidnapped and beaten by their captors,
who attempted to break their spirits, make them suicidal,
and then funnel them into suicide attacks. In rare cases
where the teenagers were rescued and assessed by a psy-
chiatrist, they appeared to have signs of depression and
other psychological disorders. Along similar lines, in Iraq,
women have reportedly been raped by terrorists and then
encouraged to carry out “martyrdom operations”to atone
for their “crime”of sexual victimization.
Naturally, the amount of pressure required to make a
person choose death depends upon that individual’s
psychological strengths or weaknesses. Some people will
endure almost anything in order to survive, as most concen-
tration camp prisoners during the Holocaust did. Others
have a relatively low threshold for pressure or pain: they
would prefer to commit suicide than risk the uncertainty
or discomfort of trying to cope, resist, or escape.
For example, a preemptively arrested suicide bomber
named Nazima volunteered for weapons training with a ter-
rorist group, and then was repeatedly pressured to carry out
a suicide attack, until she found herself in the midst of a
major psychological crisis. As she later recalled:
When they told me I was going to carry out “an action”I cried a
lot, I almost fainted, everything went black before my eyes …I
kept telling [the dispatcher] that I wasn’t religious, I didn’t pray
…I asked him if I could start all over from the beginning, to
forget that there had ever been a connection between us …
They refused, naturally, and said “You know everything about
us and we aren’t sure of what will happen once you leave this
room.”(Berko 2007, pp. 5–6)
Nazima knew that her best chance for survival was to ask
her father for help, but although she had the opportunity,
she feared doing so, and instead decided she would
rather blow herself up.
Coerced suicide terrorists are not primarily driven by
ideological commitment or the desire to sacrifice their
lives for a cause. They find themselves caught between
the proverbial rock and a hard place, and become psycho-
logically compromised because of the pressures upon
them. I wonder about their mental health as the end
draws near. In the days leading up to their suicide attacks –
when they have surrendered all hope and stopped looking
for options –perhaps their psychology becomes similar to
many other suicidal people.
Another type of suicide terrorist appears comparable to
people who kill themselves to escape the imminent
arrival of police, security, or military forces. People who
commit escapist suicides sometimes claim to be doing it
for ideological reasons, and that they are demonstrating
defiance or commitment to the cause. For instance, Adolf
Hitler insisted that the Nazis’self-orchestrated deaths
would not constitute suicide because they were heroic
self-sacrifices, made by those who courageously refused
to negotiate or surrender, because only cowards would
cling to life. Similarly, shortly after 9/11, Osama bin
Laden instructed his bodyguards to shoot him in the back
if capture by American forces was ever imminent, but
claimed his death would be “martyrdom,”not suicide.
These claims do not stand up to scrutiny. They do not
pass the previously discussed criteria for evaluating state-
ments’credibility, because they portray the speakers in a
better light, not a worse one. And in each case, the
primary benefactor of the suicide would be the person
who died, escaped, and thus avoided the consequences of
remaining alive –not his followers or the broader cause. I
suggest that when people commit suicide to avoid serious
punishment, they are generally driven by fear, not ideology.
Similar to those who kill themselves due to coercive
pressures, people who commit escapist suicides may have
a rational motive: they find themselves in a major crisis,
and decide they would rather die than suffer future discom-
fort, humiliation, or pain. Historical records suggest that
there have been a number of mass suicides for this
reason, primarily by people who were besieged by their
enemies and believed that execution, rape, and/or enslave-
ment were inevitable. In cases of mass suicides, the vast
majority of participants were probably psychologically
healthy prior to their crises; it was the impending arrival
of the enemy that left them psychologically compromised
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358 BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2014) 37:4
and desperate for the least painful way out. Of course, it is
also possible that the consensus among those who killed
themselves in these groups is exaggerated in the historical
record, and that coercion played a significant role.
In modern cases of escapist suicides, there may be more
interaction between the situational crisis and individual’s
psychological tendencies, because of the limits on what
most approaching enemies will do to their captives. Sys-
tematic rape, medieval-styled torture, and summary
execution are rarer than in the past, which may be why
mass escapist suicides are less common. For example,
when Nazi Germany was defeated in 1945, less than 15%
of the upper echelon killed themselves: 8 of 41 party
regional leaders, 7 of 47 high-ranking SS and police
leaders, 53 of 554 army generals, 14 of 98 Luftwaffe gener-
als, and 11 of 53 admirals (Goeschel 2009).
In many cases, it appears that those who commit escapist
suicides are not just making hasty decisions in the heat of
the moment. Some appear to have already considered an
eventual suicide long before the emergency situation
arose. For days, weeks, months, or years, they seem to
have been emboldened by the knowledge that if they
were ever cornered and trapped, suicide would become
their self-imposed exit strategy.
One of the most notable cases of escapist suicide terror-
ism comes from Madrid, where in 2004, seven men blew
themselves up in their apartment after they were cornered
by police. Their suicidal explosion killed one Spanish
police officer and wounded several others, but three weeks
earlier, they had planted bombs on commuter trains in a
much deadlier attack. Notably, a number of those who even-
tually killed themselves had previously served time in prison,
which may explain their desperation to avoid going back.
Attacker Allekema Lamari –who was reportedly a 40-
year-old virgin with a mental disorder–had specifically told
a friend that he would never be caught alive again. And
fellow terrorist Abdennabi Kounjaa, who also had a criminal
record, had written a final letter to his family in Morocco that
sheds some light on his psychology. Although Kounjaa was in
Spain voluntarily, he called it “hell”and warned his children
to never follow him there. He also lamented that “I can’tput
up with this life living like a weak and humiliated person
under the scrutiny of infidels and tyrants,”adding that “this
life is the path towards death”and that he preferred
“death instead of life”(Alonso & Reinares 2006, p. 190). In
other cases, terrorists have blown themselves up to escape
arrest or punishment in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan,
and it seems likely that this type of suicide attack has
occurred in many other countries as well.
Afinal type of suicide terrorist should be compared with
individuals who are indirectly suicidal. Such people are
usually in denial about their suicidal urges, so they orches-
trate their own deaths in ways that disguise their desire to
die, even from themselves. For instance, by repeatedly
engaging in risky, self-destructive behaviors, such as sub-
stance abuse, high-risk recreation, deviant sexual behavior,
erratic driving, and self-mutilation, they ensure that their
final day will come –sooner, rather than later. Of course,
other people take similar risks without being suicidal at
all. The key distinction is that somewhere deep inside,
indirectly suicidal people engage in risky behaviors and
actually hope to fail. And if an “accidental”death does
not come quickly enough, sometimes they end up commit-
ting suicide by their own hand.
Perhaps the clearest form of indirect suicidality is the
game of Russian roulette, in which players insert one
bullet into a six-chambered revolver, and then spin the
chamber so that the bullet’s placement is determined
by chance. Each participant aims the gun at his or her
own head and pulls the trigger, taking an approximately
16% chance of death. Russian roulette players often
claim that they are not suicidal, and that “the goal of
the game is to experience the rush of excitement in
cheating fate”(Maris et al. 2000,p.451).Buttheir
lives have often been filled with depression, substance
abuse, and a range of high-risk and self-destructive
behaviors. In addition, many are under the influence
of alcohol or drugs when they play the game, which
helps them mask their suicidal intentions from
themselves.
I propose that indirect suicide terrorists often launch
armed assaults on police stations, military bases, or
other hard targets where they expect to be greeted by a
hail of bullets that result in “suicide by cop.”However,
although their chances of death are much greater than
the 16% odds offered by Russian roulette, their suicidal
intentions are much more easily camouflaged by the
nature of the act. After all, it can be extremely difficult
to differentiate between someone who engages in a
high-risk terrorist mission and wants to survive and
someone who mounts the exact same attack and wants
to die. What stands out is that in many of these scenarios,
the attackers could have picked much softer targets else-
where and would have almost certainly killed more of
the enemy. Instead, they chose riskier targets that
offered an increased likelihood of their own deaths –
which was probably part of the appeal. In Chapter 7, I
provide several examples of suicide terrorists who
seemed to fitthisdescription.
A number of terrorist hostage-takers may be indirectly
suicidal as well. For example, during the 1995 Budennovsk
hospital attack, tactical leader Shamil Basayev, who was
understandably distraught after the death of his wife and
family just a few weeks earlier, told journalists that “It
does not matter to us when we die”(Kohan 1995). Much
like other indirectly suicidal people who gamble on death
but survive, Basayev and some of his fellow terrorists
lived through that first attack, but nevertheless found a pre-
mature end. Many were later killed by Russian security
forces. And Basayev died in a mysterious bomb explosion
at age forty-one. In other incidents, terrorists appear to
have taken hostages primarily to force people to pay atten-
tion to them, even though they realized that, at any
moment, government security forces might assault the
complex and kill them. At some level, they may have
wanted that to happen.
6. Comparisons with sacrificial heroes
Suicide terrorists have been commonly considered to be
the psychological equivalent of others who sacrifice their
lives for a greater cause. However, I propose that the simi-
larities between suicide attackers and legitimate sacrificial
heroes have been significantly overstated.
In general, suicide terrorists are often assumed to be
brave because they embrace death, which most people
are afraid to do. But when evaluating bravery and fear,
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BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2014) 37:4 359
we should consider the actor’s contextual alternatives.
Although it may seem bold to jump from a window, it is
much less so if you’re fleeing a room that is on fire.
Suicide terrorists often appear to be so desperate to
escape unbearable pain –be it real or imagined, physical
or psychological –that death may feel like the less intimidat-
ing alternative. Of course, perceptions of risk vary as well.
For many suicide terrorists, blowing themselves up may
feel like the least risky thing they could do –it could offer
the greatest certainty that their overwhelming crisis will
no longer plague them. For these individuals, the risky
thing may be to face their uncertain future, tackle their
problems one day at a time, or swallow their pride and
ask for help.
Along these lines, by definition, sacrifice requires “the
forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one
considered to have a greater value or claim”(American
Heritage Dictionary 2004). This means that suicide terror-
ists could only “sacrifice”their lives if they attribute high
value to them. If they are intending to trade something
they put a low value on (continued suffering in this “transi-
ent”and “dirty”world, according to their own statements)
for something they value highly (heavenly rewards), that
would be an upgrade, not a sacrifice. And this difference
in how suicide attackers perceive life would make them
psychologically different from millions of mentally healthy
people who genuinely believe in heaven, but also value
their lives –which seems to be why they are content to
wait for a natural end.
To shed further light on the psychological and behavioral
differences between suicide terrorists and sacrificial
heroes, I examine specific cases in Chapter 5 and
compare them across key variables (see also Lankford
2012b). The suicide attacks include Hanadi Jaradat’s
suicide bombing of an Israeli restaurant and Mohamed
Atta’s 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. The sacrifi-
cial actions include Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy
stepping in front of the president to take a bullet, and the
separate cases of soldiers Ross McGinnis, Leroy Petry,
and Matthew Croucher each jumping on a grenade to
protect their comrades.
One key difference is the amount of decision time. Suicide
attacks are almost always planned in advance, and many
attackers spend months or years deciding that they want to
die. Jaradat and Atta were no different. Even when a
suicide terrorist’s behavior is triggered by an unexpected
crisis, significant premeditation is usually involved in plan-
ning the attack. By contrast, McCarthy, McGinnis, Petry,
and Croucher had to make split-second decisions in the
heat of the moment. Unlike most suicide terrorists, they
did not orchestrate their situations. These deadly threats –
the bullet, the grenade –found them, not the other way
around. And unlike most suicide terrorists, they did not
have days, weeks, months, or years to weigh the options
and look for better solutions. McCarthy specifically recalls
that he barely had the chance to think before jumping in
front of the president, and thus attributes his behavior to
“reaction based upon the training”(Crean 2007).
Another critical difference is whether the actor had the
intention of dying. Although some explosive vests malfunc-
tion and some suicide terrorists are arrested before they
can strike, it does not seem that any of those who
attempt their attacks actually intend to survive. In fact,
they often explicitly clarify their intention of dying in
suicide notes or “martyrdom”videos, as Jaradat and Atta
both did. On the other hand, Secret Service agents who
take a bullet for the president and soldiers who jump on
a grenade to protect their comrades actually do hope to
survive. Secret Service agents specifically wear bulletproof
vests to protect themselves in the extremely unlikely event
that they do get shot. And soldiers who jump on a grenade
seem to have a realistic –albeit uncertain –chance of
living. If they get to the grenade quickly enough, they
can attempt to throw it back at their attacker. Petry
tried this, although the grenade exploded just as he
released it, costing him his right hand. Or they can
attempt to smother it with a backpack or other equipment,
as Croucher did, and may be fortunate enough to escape
unscathed. Croucher later explained that he “fully
expected”to lose a limb, but that he was willing to
make that sacrifice “if I could keep my torso and head
intact”(Harding 2008). Of course, he also realized that
the selfless action could have cost him his life: “It took
30 seconds before I realized I was definitely not dead”
(Harding 2008).
Afinal difference is whether the actor’s behavior has
the direct result of saving others or harming them. Ter-
rorist leaders often claim that in the long run, suicide
attacks save lives, because every enemy killed brings
their people a step closer to victory. After 9/11, bin
Laden argued that defeating the United States would
save millions of innocent Muslims. But even if suicide ter-
rorists were actually sacrificing their own lives in an
attempt to save their countrymen, that goal would be an
indirect and potential outcome, not a direct and nearly
certain one.
The further the gap between one’s actions and the
desired payoff, the less likely those benefits will ever
occur. Even if we give suicide terrorists such as Atta and
Jaradat the benefit of the doubt, the indisputable fact
remains that a tremendous number of dominoes would
have to fall between their attacks and any lives being
(indirectly) saved. In fact, suicide attacks often provoke
a violent backlash against the families and countrymen
of attackers, putting them in more danger, not less. All
suicide terrorists can really count on is that their
self-destructive acts will probably kill themselves and
harm others.
By contrast, McCarthy instantly knew that by stepping
in front of the president and taking the bullet, he greatly
increased the chance that the president’s life would be
saved. And McGinnis, Petry, and Croucher each jumped
on a grenade, instead of running in the opposite direction,
because they immediately realized that it was their only
way to save lives. As Croucher recalls, “Iknewa
grenade like this has a killing circumference of about
five meters …It was a case of either having four of us
as fatalities or badly wounded –or one”(Harding 2008).
Even though, at a minimum, he fully expected to lose a
limb, Croucher did everything he could to protect his
comrades.
In Chapter 5, I discuss criteria for sacrificial heroism in
much greater depth. I acknowledge that heroic figures
like McGinnis, Petry, and Croucher may have also been
killers. And some suicide terrorists may have legitimately
done heroic things during their lives. But a close examin-
ation of these specific behaviors suggests that carrying out
a suicide attack was not one of them.
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360 BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2014) 37:4
7. Explaining, predicting, and preventing suicide
attacks
Why are suicide terrorism attacks so common in certain
international hot spots? Why are they so rare in the
United States? And how can we identify suicide terrorists
and suicidal mass shooters, before it is too late? By better
understanding the psychology of suicide attackers, we
should be able to answer each of these questions more
accurately than ever before. However, we should consider
several other critical variables as well.
In Chapter 8, I propose that there are three minimum
requirements for suicide attacks: (1) suicidal intent
(whether it is conventional, coerced, escapist, or indirect),
(2) access to weapons, and (3) access to enemy targets. If
these factors are present, a suicide attack could occur; if
they are not, a suicide attack is essentially impossible. I
also identify four additional facilitators for the most
deadly attacks and prolonged suicide terrorism campaigns:
(4) homicidal intent, (5) a sponsoring terrorist organization,
(6) social stigmas against conventional suicide, and (7)
social approval of suicide terrorism (see also Lankford
2011c). Although some attackers are primarily suicidal
and largely indifferent to the casualties they cause, others
with both suicidal and homicidal intent want to take as
many victims with them as possible. In turn, sponsoring ter-
rorist organizations may increase suicidal and homicidal
intent, provide access to weapons and enemy targets, and
boost social approval of suicide terrorism through their
propaganda.
Social stigmas against conventional suicide and social
approval of suicide terrorism often work together. When
a community strongly condemns conventional suicide as a
certain path to hell, it virtually disappears as a potential
escape route. This may be one of the primary reasons
why suicide rates in the Islamic world are so low. On the
other hand, when a significant percentage of people
believe that suicide terrorism is justified, a new door
opens for desperate individuals looking for a way out.
As I detail in the book, these factors may help explain
why suicide terrorism has been so common in certain
international hot spots, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some scholars have blamed Western occupation, making
the argument that local inhabitants carry out suicide
attacks because they are inspired to defend their home-
land and political sovereignty (Pape & Feldman 2010).
And, certainly, foreign occupation can provoke significant
anger. However, I suggest that mentally healthy people
find many alternative ways to fight without intentionally
dying.
The key is that foreign occupation and war do not only
provoke political backlash, they also have major psycho-
logical consequences on the local populace. For example,
during the first two years of the Iraq War, more than
67,000 civilians were documented as killed or wounded,
and many more went missing (Iraq Body Count 2005).
Others lost their jobs and homes. It seems virtually inevita-
ble that this would lead to a rise in suicidal and homicidal
intent. And there are other indications that access to
weapons, access to targets, social approval of suicide
terrorism, and the presence of sponsoring terrorist orga-
nizations also increased. But it should be emphasized
that foreign occupation is not inexorably linked to
suicide terrorism. Civil war, sectarian violence, and drone
strikes may produce an increase in many of these variables
as well.
Separately, many scholars and government leaders have
been baffled by the scarcity of suicide terrorism attacks on
American soil. From 1990 to 2010, there were just thirteen
attacks in the United States that met the definition of
suicide terrorism –fewer than one per year. In Chapter 8,
I suggest that this can be explained by a number of
factors, including low social approval of this tactic domesti-
cally, weak social stigmas against conventional suicide, lack
of access to pre-made explosive vests, and the absence of a
local terrorist organization that could arm and deploy a pro-
cession of bombers. But given that about 34,000 Americans
kill themselves each year and that many others could be
coerced into doing so, the United States is certainly not
immune to a sudden spike in suicide attacks.
Fortunately, much more can be done to identify future
suicide terrorists and suicidal mass shooters before they
strike. For instance, previous homeland security initiatives
have emphasized the need for public vigilance, calling on
citizens to report suspicious behavior. But most people
have assumed this refers to the suspicious behavior of stran-
gers, not to their own friends and family. With the help of
scholars who can share their latest findings about the criti-
cal warning signs, members of the public could be much
better educated on how to recognize suicidal people in
their midst. In the past, due to their intimate knowledge
of those closest to them, family members have sometimes
proven to be more effective at detecting at-risk individuals
than the FBI or CIA. Educating them on exactly what to
look for would increase their ability to help.
Furthermore, the ubiquity of Internet communications
offers an unprecedented opportunity to find and monitor
potential suicide attackers. Our lives are more intercon-
nected than ever before, which makes it far easier to see
into the hearts and minds of people we have never met.
It might be easy to assume that suicide terrorists and
mass shooters would not put clues about their attack
plans online. But like the rest of us, they are not purely
rational. They are often psychologically compromised,
emotionally conflicted, and deeply consumed by pain.
Before they attempt suicide –which is often referred to
as a “cry for help”–they sometimes cry out by posting
online. In addition, suicide attackers are often socially iso-
lated and desperate for attention, which makes Internet
forums, online communities, dating web sites, and social
networking platforms especially attractive for fulfilling
their needs. And if they have bottled-up anger that they
cannot share with those around them, they may be particu-
larly likely to vent it online, where many users still feel
essentially anonymous and free to say whatever is on
their minds. By identifying behavioral patterns in online
activity, scholars may be able to assist security officials in
fine-tuning systems for Internet surveillance. For effi-
ciency’s sake, I suggest that the surveillance should
largely be done by computer programs, not human analysts.
But in order to minimize false positives and privacy infrin-
gement, the software must be based on good science.
These are just a few of the many possibilities. Given the
evidence that suicide terrorists are suicidal, experts
from the behavioral and brain sciences may be able to
pioneer a series of major breakthroughs in threat assess-
ment, security screening, suicide prevention, and other
exciting areas.
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BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2014) 37:4 361
8. Conclusion
Ihopethatmyfindings will be valuable for scholars con-
ducting research well beyond the scope of counterterrorism.
It is often helpful to learn from extremes, and I have
studied some profound extremes of the human experience –
from people at their very worst and most hopeless to
people at their very best and most heroic. One thing I
have learned is that the hardwired survival instinct appears
far stronger than most people give it credit for.
There is a wildly popular, cross-cultural, highly roman-
ticized assumption that heroic individuals often embrace
certain death because they are so passionately committed
to a cause. I used to subscribe to this view, but now
I’m not so sure. In extreme crises, relatively normal
people may commit suicide to avoid future discomfort,
punishment, or pain. But that seems more selfish than
selfless. And certainly, people can have a vested interest
in encouraging others to die for the good of the group.
But do mentally healthy people with time and options
actually kill themselves for an ideological cause?