ChicagoSunTimes

For suicide bombers, it's an act of faith

September 23, 2001

BY STEVE WARMBIR FEDERAL COURTS REPORTER

Listen to the words of a suicide bomber:

"I am not a murderer. A murderer is someone with a psychological problem. Armed actions have a goal. Even if civilians are killed, it's not because we like it or are bloodthirsty, it is a fact of life in a people's struggle. The group doesn't do it because it wants to kill civilians but because the jihad must go on."

Listen to the words of a second suicide bomber: "If my commanders were to tell me tomorrow to carry out a suicide bombing, I would pick up the explosive suitcase, and without a moment's hesitation, I would do it.''

Listen to the words of a third: "The bombers are holy fighters who carry out one of the more important articles of faith."

Jerrold M. Post, a researcher at George Washington University, has listened to the words of 35 suicide bombers, all of them jailed Middle Eastern terrorists. He has sat with them in Israeli and Palestinian prisons and looked in their eyes and asked questions and listened closely, determined to understand what moves a man to sacrifice his own life in the pursuit of killing innocent men, women and children.

And what he has learned, Post says, is there are no innocents. Not in the eyes of a fanatic. Not in the midst of a jihad--a holy war.

Let a fourth suicide bomber, Hassan Salame, explain: "A suicide bombing is the highest level of jihad and highlights the depths of our faith."

Salame, a high-ranking member of the terrorist organization Hamas, is serving multiple life terms for orchestrating the wave of suicide bombings that killed 46 Israelis and tourists in the mid-1990s.

For more than 20 years, Post worked for the CIA, where he pioneered the field of psychological profiling. For President Jimmy Carter in 1978, he wrote the famous Camp David profiles of Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin.

More recently, in a federal courtroom in New York City, Post testified on behalf of Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, who had been convicted of taking part in the bombing of two east African embassies in 1998, killing 224 people. Post argued that Mohamed, who could have been sentenced to death, was not a major player in the plot. The jury sentenced Mohamed to life behind bars.

"It's really important to emphasize that these are not crazed people,'' Post said.

Nor are they unhinged loners or embittered outcasts.

On the contrary, they are rational, logical, above average in intelligence, and suffer no major psychological problems. If they were emotional basket cases, they would be too unstable to work within terrorist groups, which would expel them.

They are just utterly convinced that they are right.

Strange heroes

Consider Saeed Hotari, a Palestinian refugee who returned from Jordan to his father's West Bank hometown to find the place beggared by years of Israeli occupation.

Like many young Palestinian men, he was brought up to despise Israel, Israelis and all that they stand for. In a note he left for his parents, he promised to turn his body into "fragments and bombs which run after the people of Zion, blowing and burning what remains of them."

One night he rode by car to Tel Aviv, joined a line outside a beachfront disco and detonated a bomb hidden in his clothing. Twenty-one Israelis died, including the teenage girl he had been talking to in line.

His father later told a newspaper that he was proud of his son. "He has become a hero," he said.

Terrorism experts say the approval of the community is an important reason why terrorists do what they do. In a recent opinion poll, 78 percent of Palestinians said they supported suicide bombings against Israel.

Post emphasized that suicide bombers don't believe they are ending their lives when they blow themselves up. Suicide is, in fact, prohibited by the Quran. They believe instead that they are becoming martyrs--sacrificing themselves in the service of Allah.

"It is suicide attacks which earn the most respect and elevate the bombers to the highest possible level of martyrdom," said another terrorist who talked to Post.

And in this holy war, there are no moral borders they will not cross.

"In a jihad, there are no red lines," one terrorist said.

While the terrorists Post interviewed were interested in inflicting as many casualties as possible, the use of chemical or biological weapons wasn't on their radar.

One terrorist told Post that there simply wasn't a need. More old-fashioned weapons could create just as much terror.

"Just give me a good Kalishnikov,'' he said.

These terrorists are different

The men who carried off the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon differed in several basic ways from the typical suicide bomber in the Middle East, a man in his 20s who has little money or education.

Most obviously, the men involved in the Sept. 11 attacks were older, educated and had valuable skills. And they didn't appear to be the most religious of men. They were seen drinking at bars, ogling strippers and perusing the aisles of adult video stores.

One theory being floated by anti-terrorism experts is that the hijackers were simply doing their best to fit in with the Americans all around them.

It's a theory Post finds plausible. He points out that a training manual for terrorist Osama bin Laden's group assures members that whatever they must do to hide their identity--whether it's shaving their beard or not going to the mosque--will be forgiven by Allah.

"These were people who carried their values within them,'' Post said. "They were dedicated ultimately to their mission. So they were living the normal appearance of the middle class, knowing that they would ultimately make the ultimate sacrifice for what they saw as their glorious cause."

These most recent terrorists may also differ from the typical suicide bombers of past attacks in the breadth of their goals, says Walter Laqueur, author of the book The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction.

"The new terrorism is different in character, aiming not at clearly defined political demands but at the destruction of society and the elimination of large sections of the population," he writes. "In its most extreme form, this new terrorism intends to liquidate all satanic forces, which may include the majority of a country or mankind."

And they can hardly wait.

One terrorist interviewed by Post talked about what he felt when a superior officer, on his way to commit a suicide bombing, said to him: "I hope that you will complete my work.''

"I understood this to mean I should continue to plan and execute attacks,'' the terrorist said with bravado.

But he also admitted to feeling "jealous" and "slighted."

He hadn't been chosen to be a suicide bomber himself.

Contributing: Scripps Howard News Service

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2001