|
Shock and Awe: Suicide Terrorism by Gary I. Wilson and John P. Sullivan April 4, 2007 Terrorism is a pervasive and often effective form of political violence. Gaining insight into why groups and individuals embrace terrorism, especially suicide operations, is therefore essential to countering it. Specifically, how can we understand the individual and social “psychology of terrorism?” In its simplest expression terrorism is ‘instrumental violence’ that is, the use of force or violence (i.e., kinetics), by individuals or groups that is directed toward civilian populations and intended to instill fear as a means of coercing individuals or groups to change their political and social positions. Essentially, it is the psychology of fear and kinetics (i.e., violence) that gains terrorism attention and gives it power and influence. Suicide operations are a growing concern worldwide. Daily suicide attacks -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel or elsewhere -- involving vehicle or person-borne devices reinforce the effectiveness of the tactic. Military, intelligence, and law enforcement professionals study terrorism in order to discover who are or may become terrorists, in order to detect, identify, target, and eventually neutralize terrorist threats. Yet, many factors and complex behaviors are involved in the creation of a terrorist. The lack of a typical terrorist profile makes it difficult to predict who will become terrorists or detect, identify, and target them once they accept the terrorist mantle. Psychiatrist Jerrold Post observes that there is a broad spectrum of terrorists, terrorist groups, and terrorist organizations, each having a different psychology, motivation, behavior, and decision heuristics. Post rightly asserts that we should not speak of a terrorist psychology in the singular, but rather of terrorist psychologies in the plural. Thus, terrorists and terrorist groups are best studied by addressing their own unique characteristics and dynamics. Group mindsets determine how the group and its individual members view the world. Knowing a specific group’s mindset enables better assessment of that group’s likely targets and operational behavior under varying circumstances. A group’s mindset can be profiled by assessing their transactions (i.e., activities and statements) for specific signatures. The importance of seeing things from the terrorist perspective (i.e., motivations and intentions) cannot be overstated. This technique (i.e., red teaming or seeing things through the mind’s eye of the terrorist) has been refined by antiterrorism specialists in Iraq and is called forensic operational red teaming (FORT). The underpinnings of the forensic operational red team are to know your enemy and do it to him before the enemy does it to you. Sun Tzu in the 6th century B.C. advised leaders to know their enemy and know themselves. Red Teaming is means of gaining a sophisticated, insightful, and practical look into the enemy’s thinking, strategy, tactics, and techniques – it is creating a portal into how (from the enemy’s perspective) the enemy thinks, operates, and is likely to act and adapt to the tactics being used against him. Without knowing our enemies we cannot think like them to anticipate how they may act or behave in a variety of situations. The premise behind forensic operational red teaming is two folder: (1) Think and act like he enemy from his perspective (especially when using a low technological approach to defeat high tech systems of conventional forces) to attack and/or adapt to our tactics, techniques, and procedures (2) Deny the “ enemy” (be he a suicide bomber or terrorist) his anonymity and ability to blend into the local population using biometrics and forensics. The goal is to make the suicide bomber, IED maker, terrorist, or insurgent more identifiable by gathering forensic characteristics or markers (i.e. fingerprints, iris scans, DNA, facial recognition features, tool marks, power residues, voice prints, geographical profiling). One area of great interest for red teaming and forensically is why and how people become suicide bombers and/or terrorists. Terrorism’s Psychological Components People become terrorists in many different ways and for many different reasons. Clark McCauley, a noted social psychologist, simplifies the range of possible explanations for why people become terrorists: they are crazy, they are crazed by hatred or anger, or they are rational within their own perspective. A commonly held view is that terrorists must be mentally disordered, suicidal, or pathological. Yet, research offers little evidence that terrorists do in fact suffer from psychopathology. Nevertheless, terrorist violence has psychological components that manifest themselves in motives and belief systems, social learning, aggression, or other behavior markers. Understanding of the circumstances (i.e., the psychology) that cause a person or persons to become terrorists and carry out terrorist acts (i.e., the kinetics) is the goal of forensic terrorist profiling. The forensic psychology of terrorism is an emerging and evolving discipline. Important actors investigated include: motivation, cognitive restructuring, psychopathology, group dynamics, moral disengagement, dehumanization, frustration-aggression theory, and other models. Clearly, there is no single motive for engaging in terrorism -- suicide or otherwise. The motives are multiple and complex expressions of historical, political, economic, social and psychological factors. Understanding terrorism requires a careful consideration of psychosocial dynamics. Group dynamics and social networks are important in understanding terrorist actions and behavior. Individuals make a commitment to the group; they share a common mindset. Group identity and loyalty trumps other considerations. Terrorists use groups and networks for both logistical and psychological support. Groups afford a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, perhaps even a sense of identity. Countering Suicide Terrorists (Homicide Bombers or Martyrs?) Suicide attacks have appeared throughout the history of the world. Most contemporary researchers mark the 1983 suicide attack on the U.S. embassy in Beirut, as the beginning of a modern era of suicide terrorism. Existing research reveals a marked absence of major psychopathology among “would-be” suicide attackers; that the motivation and dynamics for choosing to engage in a suicide attack differ from those in the clinical phenomenon of suicide; and that there is a rational “strategic logic” for the use of suicide attack campaigns in asymmetric conflict or fourth generation warfare (4GW). As with other terrorists, there is no indication that suicide bombers have psychological disorders or are mentally unbalanced in other ways. In contrast, their personalities are usually quite stable and unremarkable, at least within their own cultural or group context. There is also no single profile of suicide terrorists. For example most, but not all, suicide terrorists are aged between 16 and 28. Most are male, but 15% are female and that proportion is rising. Most come from poor backgrounds and have limited education, but some have university degrees and come from wealthy families. For example the 9-11 hijackers came from generally middleclass backgrounds, were older, and many had university level education. In an alarming recent example, a 64-year-old Palestinian grandmother blew herself up on a suicide-homicide mission in November 2006. Indeed, the term suicide terrorist or bomber is controversial because the main objective is not suicide but mass homicide carried out by means of self-destruction designed expressly to inflict lethal harm on others. The suicide terrorists who planned and executed the 11 September 2001 attacks would not conceptualize the acts as suicide but instead as acts of martyrdom rationalized and justified as a legitimate struggle in a conflict of national and religious dimensions. The goal of all terrorism is psychological; its aim is to create fear and psychologically debilitate a targeted civilian population. Given the psychology of terrorism, it is clear that understanding and countering suicide terrorism is a pressing need. Terrorism is usually goal-directed behavior. Political, social and ideological goals help drive the decisions of terrorists as well as their organizational goals. Profiling suicide terrorists is in many ways analogous to profiling criminals. Criminal profiling describes the processes of inferring distinctive personality characteristics of individuals responsible for committing criminal acts from physical and/or behavioral evidence. Criminal profiling does not provide a discernable profile of all criminals, but does provide insight into violent criminal acts of serial rape and serial sexual homicide. While there is no specific terrorist profile that expresses itself psychologically, there is potential for identifying discernable psychological attributes for suicide terrorists. Such profiles are essential to understanding and countering terrorist threat. G.I. Wilson is a retired a Marine Corps Colonel with over 30 years of military service. He teaches in the Administration of Justice Department of Palomar College, San Marcos, CA. and consults for ABC-7 Los Angeles, Knowledge and Intelligence Program Professionals KIPP), Emergency Response Research Institute (ERRI). He is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and serves on the Board of Directors for Bossov Ballet Theatre. He was a coauthor of the 1989 paper that coined the term “fourth generation warfare.” John P. Sullivan is a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. He is also a researcher focusing on terrorism, conflict disaster, intelligence studies, and urban operations. He is co-founder of the Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning (TEW) Group and co-editor of Countering Terrorism and WMD: Creating a global counter-terrorism network (Routledge, 2006). |