Psychology of Terrorists: Case Studies

Terrorist Organizations usually recruit members to their specific modus operandi in order to maximise efficiency and effectiveness in their missions.

Below are case studies of some groups from New Terrorism:

1)Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)

Traits:

The organization aimed to establish an independent Tamil state, Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka because of the unfair treatment by the Sinhalese Government. The LTTE is led by Pranhakaran, who is seen as a megalomaniac, and focuses on the documentation of terror acts through photography and chronicalization.

Known for:

• Suicide commandos used in assassination attempts, e.g. assassination of Rajive Ghandi, Prime Minister of India, and cabinet ministers of Sri Lanka such as Weerasinghe Mallimarachchi and G.M. Premachandra
• Simple modus operandi of belt-bomb suicide

2) Hizballah

Traits:

This organization is formed within Lebanon and comprises mostly Shia Muslim members (anti-Western, anti-Israeli ethnicity), recruited from age 17 and above, occupations include a wide range from ex-soldiers to doctors and professors. It views external influences (particularly Western) to be corrupting the Islamic world and has intense resentment against Israel as it is viewed as a proxy used by Westerners to gain influence over the Arab Nations. It sees itself as the saviour of oppressed and dispossessed Muslims. Hizaballah is led by Imad Fa-iz Mughniyah, notorious for his charisma and use of violence.

Goal:

To eradicate external influences, mainly the whole of Israel and to establish an exclusively Shia, Iran-style Islamic state in Lebanon. Also to establish Islamic rule over Jerusalem and Palestine.

Known for:

• Sabotaging peace negotiations in the Middle East, i.e. April 1983 truck bombings which killed 63 people at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon and 1995 hijacking of TWA flight 847 from Athens to Rome
• Mughniyah kidnapped most of the hostages held in Lebanon, including British envoy Terry Waite and William Buckley, who was later murdered

3) Al-Qaeda

i. Leader: Osama Bin Laden - Profiling

Osama Bin Laden is the founder and leader of Al-Qaeda and the prime suspected mastermind behind the World Trade Center attack in 2001.

He was born in Saudi Arabia in 1957 by the Syrian mother and Yemeni father and is one of the 50-odd child of the multiple wives of Mohammed Bin Laden, a wealthy construction bawss who builds places for the Saudi royalty. He is extremely rich, with an estimated wealth of 30 - 300 million USD, and his family controls the Bin Laden group, a multi-billion conglomerate. He was radicalized as a student in Jeddah in the late 1970s via the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical group devoted to establishing a pan-Islamic state.

Osama holds degrees in civil engineering and public administration. He consults with militant clerics who promote a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.

ii. Osama's ideology

Bin Laden and other militant Islamist leaders seek to rid the Islamic world of Western Imperialism as they view the Western Influence as a threat against their fundamentalist interpretation of the Qu'ran.

They went so far as to declare war against the U.S. in 1996 and issued a 1998 manifesto denouncing the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, U.S. support of Israel and the economic sanctions imposed after the 1991 Gulf War against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. 

"To kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able, in any country," the manifesto reads, "until their armies, shattered and broken-winged, depart from all the lands of Islam." Bin Laden regarded Western institutions - co-ed schools, MTV, Rotary clubs and democracy - as depraved.

iii. What is Bin Laden's relationship with the Saudi Government?

When Bin Laden returned from the Afghan war in 1989, he gave speeches accusing the Saudi monarchy of being corrupt, cruel and un-Islamic. He was placed under virtual house arrest in 1991, and later that year, he went into exile. In 1994, the Saudi government stripped him of his citizenship and said it had frozen its assets.

iv. Why did Bin Laden view U.S. as the enemy?

In the 1980s, Bin Laden disdained America for its alliances with Israel and moderate Muslim states, but the Gulf crisis was the key that crystallized his bottled up hatred. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Bin Laden wanted Arab veterans of the Afghan war to help the Saudi army defend Saudi Arabia. He saw the arrival of American troops to confront Saddam (and the continued U.S. military presence in the Gulf after the war) as a violation of the sanctity of Muslim territory. 

In return, America retaliated in various ways, including military strikes, diplomacy and legal action and espionage work. The United States used diplomatic pressure and UN Sanction threats to get Sudan to expel Bin Laden in 1996. Fir several years, the CIA paid agents in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan to monitor bin Laden's movements; i.e. after the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, the United States used cruise missiles to hit Bin Laden's Afghan bases. In 1998, a federal grand jury indicted bin Laden and 21 other Al-Qaeda members for conspiring to kill Americans abroad; with 4 men convicted in May 2001.

Bin Laden targeted the World Trade Center as it was the symbol of Western influence, affluence of economic power. As a result, this devastated not just the lives and economy of Americans, but also their national pride.

Eventually, in 2 May 2011, intelligence reports pinned down Bin Laden's location and U.S. marines were sent to exterminate him, successfully doing so.