Suicide bombers are often compared to smart bombs. From their dispatchers' point of view, they are highly effective, inexpensive weapons, and there is no need to invest in their technological development. Suicide bombers are in fact smarter than smart bombs because they can choose their own targets and can react to circumstances on the ground, changing their target or their timing in an instant to ensure the maximum damage, destruction, and death. Of course, unlike smart bombs, suicide bombers think and feel. They have histories, stories, beliefs, and desires. In short, they have an inner world. Exploring the inner world of suicide bombers has been the focus of Anat Berko's research for years. What are their thought processes? Do male bombers really believe that death will transport them to a paradise inhabited by virgins? What are female bombers promised in the hereafter? Berko also explores the world of those who 'drop the smart bomb' - the dispatchers. Who are the people who persuade others to go calmly to their horrific deaths? To learn about the inner world of suicide bombers and their dispatchers, Berko entered Israel's most heavily secured prison cells and conducted intensive and extensive interviews with male and female suicide bombers who had failed their missions, as well as with their dispatchers - including former Hamas spiritual and operative leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (later assassinated by Israeli Defense Forces).

About the Author

ANAT BERKO holds a Ph.D. in criminology and served as lieutenant colonel in the Israeli Defense Forces. She is a research fellow at the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism and also conducts research for the National Security Council.

Reviews

"The Path to Paradise is an astounding document, an original and authoritative account of the inner worlds of suicide bombers and their dispatchers. Dr. Anat Berko brings to her work a unique combination of academic expertise, and, as the daughter of Jewish refugees from Iraq, genuine cultural understanding of the world of her subjects. The depth of both her professional and personal knowledge of her subject make this book a must-read for anyone interested in the real and complex causes of the suicidal terror that is spreading like wildfire throughout the world, and of which we in the US felt the devastating effects on September 11th, 2001."-George P. Fletcher Columbia University, Author of Romantics at War: Glory and Guilt in the Age of Terrorism