ANATOMY OF A SUICIDE

by Ron Ben-Yishai, "Yediot Ahronot" Jan 27, 1995, Supplement pp. 7, 23.
On The Morning of the Attack The Suicide Bathes and Shaves His Head * He Departs for the Attack On a Fast, After A Few Days of Concentrated Preaching from his Operator * They Are Mainly Not Volunteers, But Are Chosen From Among the Activists * Investigations by Security Officials Disclose That In General He is Single, Age 18-27, From a Poor Family * The Suicide Does Not Say Goodbye to His Family or Friends, or Abstain From Doing Things That Will Indicate His Intention. He Simply Disappears.

A day or two before the appointed time of the attack, the bearded young man begins the mental and physical preparation for his ascent in a storm to Heaven. It begins with a fast. Between prayers the designated suicide hears sermons on religious and political topics from the lips of his "operator". These sermons are said to inflame his anger over the Zionist occupation, and strengthen his resolve to sacrifice his life.
The operators such as, for example, Yaki Aiash in Samaria and Kamal Kahil in Gaza (HAMAS men), or Hani Abed (the Jihad man who was killed when his car exploded), fill a decisive role not only in planning and preparation for a terror attack, but also in the psychological preparation of the suicide attacker for executing an action that is so opposed to the nature of a reasonable person.
Aiash has so far prepared between seven and ten terror attacks, Kahil somehat fewer. Not all of the attacks were successful. But the fact is, their successful undertakings have caused the deaths of dozens of Israelis, and the fact that Israel has not succeeded in laying its hands on them, has achieved for the two of them a supernatural status. A cross between religious saint and war hero.
This status is such that to be present with them face to face in the hideout is, in and of itself, considered a great honor by a young fundamentalist: proof that he belongs to the small group of the chosen, whose exalted religious faith and national loyalty have been officially recognized by the highest authority in the organization. In the five or six days that they spend together before the attack, the operator becomes the greatest father figure in his life. The terrorist develops a tremendous psychological dependency and longs to execute everything he demands in the most perfect manner in order to earn his esteem.
The recruitment process for the terrorists designated for executing suicide attacks is long and complex. Knowledgeable parties within HAMAS relate that for the most part there are no volunteers, but people chosen from among the young activists of the organization, without their being asked at the start to execute a suicide mission.
Those sources claim that experience has proven that volunteers do indeed show courage, but are mainly too volatile, filled with emotion, and therefore lack the required cool-headedness to execute the mission with precision and efficiency.
And there is another reason why volunteers are not wanted: HAMAS and Islamic Jihad suspect that Israel has planted collaborators inside the organizations, who pretend to be volunteers. These people are liable to disclose the hiding place of the operator and his whole framework of accomplices during the preparations, and afterwards defect and transfer the information to the General Security Services.
There have been isolated instances in which young Palestinians did volunteer, mainly with the Jihad, to execute attacks, and were nonetheless accepted. But in general the sheikhs and the local leaders identify young men, who stand out in their restrained behavior and in their boundless faith to the religion and to the political line of the organization. These are the ones they designate to execute suicide attacks. The identification is done in the mosques and in the course of regular political and community activity. In HAMAS, for example, they know that the "Engineer" Yaki Aiash, prefers to work with terrorists who have spent long periods in Israel's security prison facilities and have been released, and they try hard to find what he is looking for.
Experience gathered in recent years enables Israel's Security Services to draw very roughly a profile of a suicide-terrorist. According to research of security officials, he is generally single, age between 18 and 27. He comes from a family of limited means, and is himself either unemployed or has a meagre income. According to the research, the desire for a good life in the world to come is a most critical component in the motivation of these terrorists.
Most of the suicides have little education. Practically all of them are pupils from religious educational institutions in the Gaza Strip or the territories, administered and funded by HAMAS (hence the demand of the General Security Services to close these institutions. Or at least cut off their sources of funding.)
It is possible also to examine geographical characteristics. Most of the suicides who are natives of the Gaza Strip came from Gaza City and the refugee camps in the vicinity. Only two of the suicides until now came from outside this region, one from Khan Yunis and one from Rafiah. In Judea and Samaria the suicides principally come from the region of Jenin/Kalkilya and the Ramallah region.
According to accumulated testimony, most of the suicides were beset by hard mental distress, the source of which was friction with the Israeli occupation. Either because they themselves were physically hurt or humiliated by soldiers or Israeli civilians, or someone from their family underwent a bad incident like that.
The case of the terrorist Iman Radi is typical. He blew himself up at the transport station for soldiers next to Binyanei Haooma in Jerusalem, last month. During the Intifada soldiers broke into his family home, in the refugee camp near Khan Yunis, a number of times. In one case a soldier hit his mother with the rifle butt badly in the face. Iman carried his mother in his arms to the hospital. His sister, the family claim, miscarried her fetus after one of these night visits. Iman himself was taken out of the house many times and forced under threats and blows to erase graffiti that was painted by his friends on the walls of the houses in the camp.
It is therefore a matter of people who grew up in the period of the Intifada, and the experiences they underwent in the years their personalities were formed created in them elements of impotent anger and frustration, that seek some channel of release for them. Religion serves as an escape for them. All of the suicides stand out in their adherence to religion and in a fanatic fulfillment in daily life of its principles and commands. Religious fanaticism was generally also accompanied by national extremism, and that is basically what motivates their readiness to commit suicide.
Nonetheless, the experts claim, fanaticism by itself is not sufficient. It is always accompanied by secondary motivations, that give the suicide terrorist an extra final push, that enables him to execute his mission. One important secondary motivation is the desire to imitate other suicides who succeeded in their missions and earned great prestige in the Palestinian community.
This motivation was very conducive in the last year and a half, when the fundamentalist organizations succeeded in securing high-grade explosives

(TNT and others) for military purposes. (The terrorist organizations receive the explosives today principally from smugglers in the Gaza Strip, but also from thefts from military storehouses in Israel, that aren't properly guarded), and also from taking apart old land mines spread around the territories.) The use of these explosives increases very much the numbers of injured in every attack, and the success creates a momentum of attempts to imitate.
Another secondary motivation is the desire to avenge. The massacre in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, for example, is one of the important elements of motivation of the sucide terrorists. This motivation has not lost its significance although a year has passed since Baruch Goldstein fired on Muslims bowed in prayer. Also the elimination of the senior Jihad figure Hani Abed, and the killings of three Palestinian policemen by IDF soldiers near the Erez checkpoint, created a motivation that gave the final push to some of the executors of recent suicide attacks.
An additional motivation is the desire of the terrorist to cleanse his name from the guilt of collaboration that they have placed on him justly or unjustly. But this motivation is rare among suicide terrorists.
One must distinguish between the personal motivations, pushing the suicide terrorist to execute a murderous attack, and the motivations of his dispatchers. The aims of the Islamic Jihad (and its five branches) and of HAMAS are political: to stop the peace process and accumulate points in its struggle with Fatah on control of the Arab public. The happenings which the leaders of these organizations cite as reasons for a terror attack here or there, are generally pretexts for executing what they intended to execute anyway.
For the suicide, however, the concrete reason is important. It is generally a matter of people to whom it is important that from the personal and Islamic viewpoint their deeds will be justified and moral. Therefore they need there to be a tie of recompense between the terrible act they are about to commit and what was done to them or their friends. Therefore the organizations always stress an event in which Muslims or Palestinians were hurt, as justification for the attack.
At this point it is also worthwhile to underscore the difference between HAMAS and the Islamic Jihad. Until now, HAMAS did not distinguish in its terror attacks between innocent civilians and soldiers and settlers. The Jihad on the other hand, tries to focus mainly on soldiers and settlers. It is possible to assume that the reason for this is that this small organization tries not to bring the silent majority in the Palestinian community down on it. Among the Palestinians it seems killing women and children just like that is not to their liking.
Another reason it seems is the fact that the leader of the most active group in the branches of the Jihad, Fathi Shakaki, lives in Damascus. The Syrians don't want to be blasted with the accusation that they give refuge to murderers of children and women, while the war against the Israeli occupation forces, is legitimate in their eyes. Fathi Shakaki tries not to bring Assad to the point where he will be forced to expel him. HAMAS, on the other hand, whose leadership is in the territories or spread around the face of the globe, doesn't care that much.
The one who decides, in the final analysis, on the identities of the suicides and the aides who will serve them is the operator. When the leadership of the organization makes a decision to execute a spectacular terror attack, or if the operator himself comes to the conclusion that he has some plan that it is possible to enact, he communicates via aides who are well known and loyal to him to young men identified in advance, and he gives them roles to play.
At the beginning the aides are given the task of bring the explosives and the other materials such as, for example, a rented or stolen vehicle (if the intention is to explode a booby trapped car) fake identity cards of Arabs or Israelis or entry permits to Israeli territory, army uniforms, head coverings and other camouflage. The electronic apparatus for the explosive (which is generally not complicated or sophisticated, as one might mistakenly be inclined to think) is assembled by the operator himself.
Afterwards, generally 10-12 days before the attack, the operator summons the designated suicide. This person has already passed a precise examination by the activists loyal to the operator. HAMAS sources relate that before they are sent to the operator some potential suicides undergo a sort of "crystallization", in the course of which they intentionally bring them into situations in which the danger to their lives is depicted. The "instructors" examine their reactions and the manner of behavior of the ones being examined, and every one whose face or body language betrays his intentions or his fear, is sent back home. Also those who have second thoughts at the last minute - and there are those - they part on good terms without anger or recriminations.
The chosen terrorist is transported to a hiding place, which serves as his training camp and base of departure all in one. He does not say goodbye to his parents or friends, or abstain from any activity that will indicate his intention. He simply disappears.
In the hiding place the suicide learns to activate the explosive device and receives instructions on how to act in different situations which he is liable to encounter. Afterwards he goes about his business, until the morning of the action. He and his aides don't know where the attack is going to take place. The suicide is told only the general nature oof the action and how he has to act. This is done not only for security reasons of the action, but also to prevent the possibility that the suicide, if he visited the place previously, will paint in his imagination, in real terms, the terrible reality after the bomb explodes. Everything is aimed to prevent troubling meditations and second thoughts in the mind of the live explosive.
The delegation of authority is also practically perfect. The aides who are assigned to bring the suicide to the place of the attack, do not know his identity. Until the very day of the attack, every one of the participants in the logistical preparations know only his section alone, and in general is not in direct contact with the operator (consequently the great difficulties the General Security Service is having in trapping Yaki Aiash.)
Simultaneously, the suicide undergoes a process of indoctrination and purification, which reaches its climax on the day for the undertaking. He then writes a will, under the guidance of the operator, and records a video announcement that will be sent for broadcast by the television authority after his death. On the evening before, or upon waking on the morning of the attack, the terrorist bathes and shaves his head, as befits a "Shahid" (a martyr who dies for Allah's holy name). Afterwards he shaves his beard (so as to avoid identification) and dresses in a disguise that will make it difficult to identify him (including headgear that will conceal his shaven head.)
Then he prays and joins the aides who accompany him andbring him to the area of the attack. These received that same morning instructions from the operator as to how to drop him off from the vehicle, or where to leave him if they reached the place by foot. Upon reaching the vicinity of the location chosen for the blast they leave the suicide and quickly remove themselves from the place. The rest is known.