Studies on radicalization & comments

[davidbfpo]

An excellent short article 'How al Qaeda Dupes Its Followers' by Malcolm Nance (SWC member) from FP:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article..._its_followers

Osama bin Laden's terror network has perfected the art of masking its unpopular agenda with a recruitment pitch that can hook just about anyone.

Last sentence:

What's really at work here is not any one man's disposition; it's an ideology packaged to kill.

[davidbfpo]

A new USMA CTC report, headlined 'Al-Qaeda killing mostly Muslims' : http://www.nationalpost.com/news/sto...#ixzz0ZtIXrpss

The study, by the academy's Combatting Terrorism Center and based on Arabic media sources to avoid accusations of pro-Western bias, concludes (my bold)85% of the casualties from all al-Qaeda attacks in 2004-08 were Muslims, compared with 15% Westerners....The trend appears to have intensified toward the end of the period studied. In 2006-08, 96% of the victims were inhabitants of countries with Muslim majorities and only 2% were westerners.

The actual CTC report: http://www.ctc.usma.edu/Deadly%20Van...Complete_L.pdf

[omarali50]

A news item was published in the Urdu press (unfortunately no web link, I have a pdf) which I have translated below:
It describes the indoctrination of a suicide bomber (as revealed by a failed bomber). He says they were kept isolated and constantly bombarded with references from the quran and hadith that support the notion that when you die for Islam, you will receive endless rewards. One reward of course being the hoories of paradise. The business of hoors was taken to the extent that in the dark he was brought very close to a woman and allowed to feel her up and then told this is nothing compared to what awaits in paradise (he is 17 and has probably never seen any woman other than his close relatives). When he was being driven to his target, the driver kept zigging and zagging on an empty road and when he asked why, he was told that thousands of hoories are so desperate to get him that they are crowding the road, fighting with each other about who gets this martyr...
I cannot vouch for the truth of this particular story (the urdu press is notorious for making up stories) but other than the bit about feeling up an actual woman (something i have never heard of) the rest sounds plausible and should be familiar to anyone who has heard the more lurid preachers who populate fringe mosques in Pakistan. Researchers have looked at Palestinian suicide bombers who come from a much more developed culture. Similar research has not yet been done on the suicide bombers being trained in the tribal areas of Pakistan. But when such research is done, it may surprise some people to learn how crudely literal and "corporeal" the rewards and promises can be....