Yoram Schweitzer - about suicide
terrorism and Al-Qaeda
Yoram Schweitzer is a researcher
at the "Jaffee
Center for Strategic Studies" (JCSS) at Tel Aviv University. He has
lectured and published widely on terror-related issues, and consults for
government ministries on a private basis (he is a head of Labat Strategic Consulting). Mr. Schweitzer worked
for Israeli intelligence for ten years (until 1998) . His areas of expertise include suicide terrorism, and state-sponsored
terrorism. He is co-author of The Globalization of Terror (2003).
Mr. Schweitzer is renowned expert in
suicide terrorism, he has been conducting close and private conversations with
failed suicide bombers and senders. The project is designed to study the
mindset of those individuals who were involved in these attacks and to
understand their aims and the strategy of their organizations.
In November
2005 he published the report “Al-Qaida & the Globalization of Suicide Terrorism”
(with Sari Goldstein Ferber ). Yoram
Schweitzer was interviewed by
Andrei Soldatov:
- How many
suicide bombers did you talk with?
- I
interviewed more than 80 jailed terrorists suicide
bombers, senders and regular terrorists in
a structured and informed way and talked to way over 100 Palestinian convicted terrorists
in unregistered conversation as side talks sometime very long conversations. I
put an emphasis on the content and depth of the conversation rather than on the
number of the interviewees in order to really get to the bottom of their
thinking, feelings and motivations.
- What do
you think how does the psychological state of terrorists change after arrest?
- It depends
on the time they spent in jail. The longer they stayed in jail the more they
were pragmatized their views and understanding the
Israeli side . That doesn't say they became supporters
of Israel
or that they renounced their right as they see it to fight against their
enemies but they could see some of the other side way of life and history and
worries which they totally disregarded and ignored in the past. The
younger they are and the shorter term they stayed in prison the more radical
they remain.
- As I
understood from your report, working in the pairs is important part of suicide
bombers.
- The issue
of working in pairs or even in larger contingents is part of the suicde drill. The pairs could assist the perpetrators to
stick to their mission and be emboldened by each other. Sometime there is a
stronger partner that influence and motivate the other who may be less
determined.
It is working
both for Al Qaida and the Palestinians.
In Al-Qaeda
we see the groups, which may consist a large quantity
of people, but they work by pairs in order to support each other. The model of working in pairs was directly influenced by
Bin Laden’s own working style. Similarly, in every
al-Qaeda attack, and particularly in the preparations for September 11, an
emphasis was placed on finding a partner for every participant. The
organization uses this technique in order to immunize operatives against second
thoughts about suicide. The increase in operatives’ sense of self-worth during
the experience of working in pairs, when both partners accept the idea and
support each other, eases the individuals’ isolation stemming from the idea
itself and the need to keep it secret. It also allows supervision and continued
communication in the event that contact with one partner is severed. Working in
pairs likewise affords an operational advantage. As example, in the case of the
attack on the American embassy in Kenya Awhali, one
of the suicide operatives, was forced by circumstances
in the field to leave the car-bomb in order to pursue the embassy guard, and
his partner activated the detonation mechanism and completed the mission.
- As I
understand, the working in pairs is a trademark of Al-Qaeda, and I do not see
this practice in Chechnya.
- Certainly,
if you speak on Beslan or Dubrovka,
there were required larger groups, but it was simply because of the larger
scale of assault.
- We have
the point of view, that drugs can be used for training of suicide bombers...
- I heard
there was people in Beslan
under the action of drugs. But I can’t verify this information. However, in Israel
we don’t see this practice. The intoxications are done by other means .
- What’s the
role of family in the selection a potential suicide bomber?
- Again, it
is a more complicated. Unfortunately, frequently the influence of brothers,
cousins is important for the future suicide terrorists. From other side, in Palestine the
parents are mostly against their son to go to blow up. Thus the part of the
family, for example the brother, recommends his brother as potential bomber,
and at the same time elder generation attempts to avoid this situation. Besides
that, it is necessary to distinguish suicide bombers and terrorists, who go on
self-sacrifice.
- What’s the
difference?
- Suicide bombers are those who are with
explosive belts and self sacrifice can be those who wished to dies as martyrs
but used AK47 or M16 and there fore are not "regular" suicide bombers .
- Now
we see temporary decline of the activity of suicide bombers in Russia.
What is the reason, what do you think?
- It is
necessary to remember the role of public opinion. I’m not sure Chechen society
supports suicidal terrorism. But I think, this will continue.
- If think
you are right, I don’t think Chechen society supports more the capture of
children in Beslan, than the suicide attacks in Moscow .
- Yes, but
there is a distance between two groups of terrorists, for example, Al-Qaeda
does not so worry about public opinion as Palestinians.
- When you
talked with the Palestinian terrorists, can you estimate the influence of
Chechen propaganda?
- I don’t
see the tracks of this propaganda in Israel. They do not need a support
from the Chechen scenes as they have their own horror stories and propaganda.
- But the
tracks of the Chechen propaganda are revealed in European muslim extremists.
- There is large distance between by
Palestinian “martyrs” and by European islamists.
To the Islamic young people in Europe actually
has an enormous effect the video cassettes about the fight of Russians with the
Chechens, this is important part in the recruiting and the training by the
Muslim brothers.
- As I know,
you don’t agree with the estimates of Al-Qaeda in Rohan
Gunaratna’s interview, published at Agentura.Ru. What’s the main point?
- The
discussion deals with the views on the globalization of terrorism, future of
Al-Qaeda and the response of the international community. My main disagreement
is that not only Gunaratna, which I highly value, but
and other experts believe, that Qaeda has transformed from a group into a
movement. In fact Al-Qaeda is still the terrorist group, which uses suicide
terrorists, personally selected and trained. Al Qaeda succeeded in delegating it doctrine to many youngster
who have been trained in their sponsored training camps in Afghanistan and by that dispersed
their ideology and practices. Some experts atated
that modus operandi of Al-Qaeda
was changed after 11 September. But all that changed, was in fact that until 11
September Al-Qaeda could send people for training into Afghanistan,and
taight them directly what they thought was the right
path and now they have problems there. The center of gravity is moved.
But this occurred independently of Al-Qaeda. Simply now others who were
qualified by AQ or their alumni prepare the attacks, using the Spanish,
Turkish, English networks. This kind of networks existed before the 9-11 and
operated or try to operate on behalf of the same ideology and the same cause
with the same autonomy, may be with slight assistance of AQ's
headquarters as they do today and I can give some examples which I
elaborated in my book The Globalization of Terror published in 2003: The Milani group in Strasburg (Dec 2000), The Beghal network in France, the Netherlands and Belgium (July
2001), the Millenium cell in LA and in Jordan
(December 1999) etc.
-
However we see Al-Qaeda can't organize another attack similar to 9/11
in US, and it let us suggest what it may be changing of tactics…
- Al Qaeda
had done only few attacks by its hard core members as they perceive themselves
as a role model. They do not need to do so many. Still they have encouraged some
of the deadliest attacks performed by others. They definitely wish to do
another 9-11 in
other forms meaning to kill thousands and I wouldn't be too relaxed about their
capability to pull out another stunt like that.
See also:
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