"While nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is more difficult than to understand him." -- Fyodor Dostoevsky.
How are we to understand the terrorist enemies of America? Two years before September 11, 2001, the U.S. Government conducted a study on profiling terrorists, "Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why." The study offers a glimpse at the terrorist's inner world. According to experts cited in the study, joining a terrorist group gives disenchanted persons "a sense of 'revolutionary heroism' and self importance that they previously lacked as individuals." In the course of life's daily grind, a small percentage of young men become "alienated," forming an embittered subset of persons whose negative experiences lead them, step by step, to membership in violent groups. "Terrorist groups are similar to religious sects or cults," explained the study. "They require total commitment by members; they often prohibit relations with outsiders...."
Once a terrorist joins a violent group, conformity with the ideology of the group is mandatory. At the same time, the terrorist seeks to blend with the outside world is much as possible. This being the case, "a terrorist will look, dress, and behave like a normal person, such as a university student...." But a terrorist is not a normal person.
Who is likely to become a terrorist? Is it the poor, the underprivileged, the poorly educated? "Terrorist and guerrilla groups do not seem to be identified by any particular social background or educational level," noted the government study. "They range from the highly educated and literate intellectuals of the 17 November Revolution Organization (17N) to the scientifically savvy 'ministers' of the Aum Shinrikyo terrorist cult, to the peasant boys and girls forcibly inducted into the FARC, the LTTE, and the PKK guerrilla organizations."
Do terrorists have a specific psychological profile? According to the government report, "the psychological approach by itself is insufficient in understanding what motivates terrorists...." Each terrorist group must be examined on its own terms. There is one common denominator, however. According to the study, the leadership of a terrorist organization is always decisive. Since terrorists resemble cultists, blind obedience is typical and leaders enjoy tremendous power over followers. This means that terrorist organizations are vulnerable at the top, at the leadership level. According to the study, terrorist and guerrilla groups are "susceptible to psychological warfare aimed at dividing their political and military leaders and factions." Another approach would be to identify and capture "a top hard-line terrorist or guerrilla leader, especially one who exhibits psychological characteristics." Capture means compromise and compromise could lead to a "turning" of the leader into an intelligence asset or "agent of influence" after his release (see "Ayman al-Zawahiri's Russian adventure"). The study also noted: "A psychologically sophisticated policy of promoting divisions between political and military leaders ... is likely to be more effective than a simple military strategy based on the assumption that all members and leaders of the group are hard-liners." (Readers are encouraged to study the aftermath of the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, when various rebel groups turned to fight each other.)
The U.S. study warned against direct military opposition to guerrilla or terrorist groups in the absence of a political strategy. The report stated: "A military response to terrorism unaccompanied by political countermeasures is likely to promote cohesion within the [terror] group. The U.S. Government's focus on bin Laden as the nation's number one terrorist enemy has clearly raised his profile in the Islamic world and swelled the membership ranks of al-Qaida."
A fairly detailed profile of bin Laden is given. He is described as a student of management and economics at King Abdul Azis University in Jiddah from 1974 to 1978. Drawn to the hedonistic environs of Beirut, bin Laden "frequented nightclubs, casinos, and bars." In 1979, energized by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, bin Laden began to "fund, recruit, transport, and train a volunteer force of Arab nationals, called the Islamic Salvation Front (ISF), to fight alongside the existing Afghan Mujahideen." He participated in the violent siege of Jalalabad in 1986. In the wake of this battle, "bin Laden and other Islamic leaders concluded that they were victims of a U.S. conspiracy to defeat the jihad in Afghanistan and elsewhere." Where did this idea come from in the midst of a war against Soviet communism? Who convinced bin Laden that America was the real enemy? Here we find the turning point in bin Laden's career.
In 1991 bin Laden warned the Saudi princes not to trust the Americans. But the Americans were needed to stop Saddam Hussein. "Saudi officials increasingly began to threaten [bin Laden] to halt his criticism," said the study. "Consequently, bin Laden and his family and a large band of followers moved to Sudan in 1991." This became his new base, from which he operated against Egypt and the United States. Within a short time, with help from the Sudanese government, he set up at least three terrorist training camps. By 1996 he had set up 23 training camps and established a "detection-proof financial system to support Islamic terrorist activities worldwide."
In 1993 bin Laden traveled to the Philippines to extend his terror network. In 1993-94 he began to organize a revolutionary underground that might one day overthrow the House of Saud. He briefly resided in a London suburb in the mid-1990s, but in 1996 he retreated to Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden's chief deputy is the Egyptian, Ayman al Zawahiri. The study describes Zawahiri as al Qaeda's "undisputed senior military commander." Of special importance, the study explained that Zawahiri "is responsible for converting bin Laden to Islamic fundamentalism." [p. 176.]
If we want to get closer to the psychology of the September 11 terrorists, readers might be interested in Abd Samad Moussaoui's book, "Zacarias, My Brother: the making of a terrorist." Zacarias Mousaoui is the only person charged with involvement in the attacks on the World Trade Center. He has been designated "the 20th hijacker," arrested prior to September 11 and jailed in Shelburne County, Minnesota. Mousaoui had been attending pilot courses at the Pan Am International Flight Academy when one of his instructors became suspicious and alerted the authorities.
According to Abd Samad, Zacarias Mousaoui was a bright and promising student. Their mother had moved them to France from North Africa. She was a hard worker and a shrewd businesswoman. But she had a raging temper, and it is not surprising that her marriage failed. So the Mousaoui boys hailed from a broken home, and they suffered the emotional scars normal to that situation. Zacarias suffered more than his older brother. Add to this the difficulties they encountered in their adopted country. The anti-Arab racism of French schoolboys made a deep impression on Zacarias. In the most difficult years of life, during which a young man discovers his place in society, Zacarias became embittered and by the mid-1990s he had met up with Islamists in London.
The amorphous core of the Islamist movement, according to Abd Samad, is the Muslim Brotherhood. This group is also known as Hizb ut-Tahrir, "the Party of Liberation." It exists in schools and universities throughout Europe and the Middle East. In France the group was known as "the kid brothers." The objective of the Muslim Brotherhood is simple: "We have to destroy this society so that it can be born again from its ashes." This "reformist" brand of Islam is nothing more than left-wing radicalism in Islamic garb. "Everything they said was marked by a desire for revenge," noted Abd Samad. In describing his brother's fate, he said that Zacarias "started to develop a specific style of argumentation, and his disillusionment and cynicism increased. When it came to France, he would argue that the system was rotten and made solely to serve a corrupt middle class." This was the point at which Zacarias Mousaoui lost interest in school and began to obsess about racism. "These accumulated frustrations were like so much fertilizer for the ideologies Zacarias unfortunately would encounter in England."
The descent of Zacarias into a kind of personal hell is indicated. Once he was drawn into the terrorist circle he became a psychological prisoner. And the rest we know. The horror of September 11 follows. And what horrors next, we shudder to think.
The reasons for terrorism are complicated. If we are to fight terrorism effectively, on the political as well as the military level, we must understand the motivations and the psychology behind the terrorists themselves.
