Front Page: Suicide Blasts Rip Iraq, Olympics Sold Out, Arrest in Tennessee Church Shooting

CitizenSugar — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:03:57 -0700

Suicide Blasts Rip Iraq:
Suicide Bombers struck twice in Iraq, leaving 47 dead and 240 injured. In Baghdad as Shia pilgrims paraded through on their way to a shrine, female bombers detonated leaving 25 dead. The pilgrimage will bring more than 1 million worshippers. In Kirkuk, a suicide bomber hit a crowd of Kurdish protesters, killing 22. Iraqi security forces have been deployed.

Olympics Sold Out:
Despite continuing problems with pollution, the events for the Olympics events in Beijing are all sold out. This could be the earliest the Games have reached capacity. Some tickets for events in other cities are still available. 6.8 million tickets have been sold so far — in Athens in 2004, only two-thirds of the tickets sold.

Arrest in Tennessee Church Shooting:
A man who opened fire with a shotgun in a Knoxville, TN, church during a children's performance of Annie, has been captured. The attack left two dead and seven wounded. Police have charged Jim Adkisson with first-degree murder. The performance had just begun when he opened fire. One witness said she thought, "oh, my God, that’s not part of the play."

What Motivates Female Suicide Bombers?

LibertySugar — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:00:13 -0700

Last week's terrorist bombing in Iraq, carried out by a woman, made many of you question the logic behind suicide bombings. While men are still far more likely to be suicide bombers than women, more and more women are ready to die and ready to kill. Male or female, the endgame is always the same, but what leads them to a crowded square with a bomb strapped on is not.

Time magazine tells the story of Hasna Maryi, a suicide bomber who found her calling after her brother died en route to his mission when a fellow jihadis's belt prematurely exploded. She was devastated: he would never be a martyr. His only path to salvation, she decided, was for her to complete his mission. Religion was not her motive (she hardly cracked the Koran growing up), but redemption was.

Hasna's story is not an anomaly. Research findings reported in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism found female suicide terrorists were more motivated by personal reasons and more likely to be recruited through peer influence, exploitation, and self-promotion than men, who found their fury in religion and nationalism and were recruited through religious persuasion.

In eJournal USA (as in paid for by the US government, just a disclosure . . .) the article "Women As Victims and Victimizers" examines the complicated question of why? To find out,

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Front Page: Suicide Blasts Rip Iraq, Olympics Sold Out, Arrest in Tennessee Church Shooting

What Motivates Female Suicide Bombers?