SUICIDE BOMBERS PSYCHE

There is no single psychological or demographic profile of suicide terrorists. No organization can create a person’s basic readiness to die and the task of recruiters is not to produce but rather to identify this predisposition in candidates and to reinforce it. Recruiters exploit the religious beliefs of the would-be bombers using the person’s faith that he/she will receive a reward in paradise in order to strengthen and solidify preexisting sacrificial motives. A suicide terrorist is almost always the last link in a long organizational chain that is comprised of numerous actors and that once the decision to launch a suicide attack has been made, its implementation requires at least six separate operations: target selection, intelligence gathering, recruitment, physical and “spiritual” training, preparation of explosives, and transportation of the suicide bombers to the target area. Suicide bombers are not lone zealots, but are instruments of terrorist leaders who expect their organizations to gain tangible benefits from this tactic. While it may not be  possible to apprehend would-be suicide bombers, once it has been established that an organization has resolved to use suicide terrorism, security services can strike against the commanders and field officers who recruit and train the assailants.

Professor Ayla Schbley of Wichita State University offers a 32-trait profile of Islamist terrorists designed to outline their psychosocial anomalies

1. Islamic religious terrorism is a method of forcefully communicating a perceived divine message/command.
2. Islamic religious terrorism is performed by elements with strong religious identity.
3. Most Islamic terrorist cells are made up of four to eight members who are interconnected through the cells’ stem elements only.
4. A Muslim religious terrorist is recruited by and from the concentric circles of the family, friendship, or fellowship of its stem element who is the first among equals.
5. In most cases, cell members themselves choose the symbolic target for their terrorism to maintain cell security and operational integrity. The stem element secures operational provisions, funds, technical and intelligence support.
6. Each cell member is constantly under other cell members’ observation or control. The culting process of religious terrorism restricts or discourages the unchaperoned contact of cell elements with outsiders to sustain their indoctrination and maintain their commitment.
7. Once a cell member commits self-immolation, most other members will commit the same act within 30 days.
8. Most Muslim religious terrorists choose to commit self-immolation during Ramadan or Ashura.
9. Muslim religious terrorism is not restricted to the influence of governmental decision-making.
10. Most Muslim religious terrorists prefer “theocratic to democratic practices”
11. Most are willing to “subordinate secular laws to sacred epistemology”
12. Most Muslim religious terrorists who have committed and/or are willing to commit suicide missions are between the ages of 13-27, are from poor families, have one or more siblings, and are geoculturally immobile.
13. While there have been a few females, paid mercenaries, and married men with children among the ranks of religious terrorists, these cells have been the exceptions.
14. Most religious terrorists who are not from poor families or refugee camps are the by-products of the migration of middle/lower middle class college bound high achievers into economically stagnant urban slums.
15. The inconsistency of prospective Muslim terrorists’ educational status with that of their parents (who are illiterate or have up to a fifth grade education), employment opportunities, imposed restrictions based on ethnoreligious identities, and a sense of inequity synergize their affinity for fundamentalism.
16. Most Muslim religious terrorists are “absolutist in orientation”
17. Most Muslim religious terrorists are “poorly trained, mediocrities in religiolegal and theological matters.
18. Most Muslim terrorists’ beliefs are based on the interpretations of charismatic religious leadership.
19. A Muslim religious terrorist’s affinity for self-immolation is inversely related to his/her wealth.
20. Muslim religious terrorism is mostly executed for fulfilling personal salvation by answering a perceived divine message/will or following directives from charismatic religious leaderships.
21. Terrorism provides some Muslim zealots with profound spiritual satisfaction and fulfillment. It is perceived as a measurable indicator of their dedication, the upper-limit of which is the extent of their willingness to commit self-immolation.
22. To a Muslim terrorist, perceived religious obligations and/or divine messages transcend social consciousness and social obligations.
23. Non-self-defensive acts of violence distinguish Islamic terrorism from those acts committed to fighting for religious freedom.
24. The potential religious terrorist has an affinity for martyrdom, is not averse to risk, and is a risk taker.
25. As a Muslim religious terrorist becomes committed to the act of self immolation, s/he exhibits signs of Serene Disengagement (SD). These signs of snapping and/or detachment from their secular milieu are marked by a faint smile, distant look, lack of eye contact with the interviewers, disciplined and/or submissive body posture, and what appears to be a contentment and/or inner peace with imminent fate.
26. Muslim religious terrorists committed to self-immolation would attempt to follow strict Islamic Sharia/rules of conduct to maintain their perceived purity and qualification for heavenly admissions. They would speak in the plural, refrain from vulgarity, perform all religious and secular obligations, pay all legal debts, and bequest 1/5 of their earthly possessions to the needy (Almsgiving).
27. Before their self-immolation, a Muslim religious terrorist would not touch a non-kin of the opposite sex or indulge in earthly pleasures (e.g., sex, gambling, liquor, and dance).
28. A Muslim religious terrorist may most often suffer from one or more mental disorders including, but not limited to, oppositional defiant, impulse-control, antisocial, or other personality disorders. These disengaging characteristics and personality disorders, when aggravated by dogma-induced critical/psychotic depression, may be causal factors in the transition from zealotry to terrorism and self-immolation.
29. A Muslim terrorist’s target would most likely be well-defined, limited in scope and dimension, and would not transcend a concentric target zone.
30. Most Islamic religious terrorists would not willingly use chemical, biological and/or nuclear weapons.
31. To Muslim religious terrorists, killing an infidel has Allah’s blessing and is not considered by them to be unethical or immoral, let alone criminal.
32. Muslim religious terrorists may be distinguished from political terrorists not only by the prior 31 traits, but also by their unconscious awareness of the maliciousness of their terrorism. This gestalt from reason is made possible by indoctrinating them -- in Mosques or madrasses [religious schools]-- to believe that: (1) their death and the death of their symbolic victims will only be temporal, (2) they are collectively chosen by Allah to be his tool, (3) they are prophets of his message, and (4) for their sacrifice they will all [victim and terrorists alike] be eternally alive in the Janna [heavens]