Alienation, frustration contribute to the making of a terrorist.

• Author: Wagner, Breanne
• Position: SECURITY BEAT: Homeland Defense Briefs

Potential terrorists often become suicide bombers when they already feel dead, according to terrorism psychologist Anne Speckhard.

In areas of conflict, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, the population undergoes daily trauma and becomes frustrated with violence.

"When people become highly traumatized, they often enter into a state of dissociation--a state of already being dead," said Speckhard, an adjunct professor at Georgetown. These people turn to suicide bombing because they have a shortened sense of life; they don't expect to live very long, she continued.

Terrorism is also driven right now by community support, Speckhard said during an ASIS global terrorism conference. She believes that "there is a huge level of [community] support right now" in Iraq and Afghanistan and other volatile areas around the world for extremist causes. Local citizens largely support terrorism when they feel under threat, Speckhard said. Societies are often fed up with violence and just want to find good solutions.

Psychologically weak communities are more easily influenced by terrorist ideology.

Young people within these areas also accept terrorism...