Terrorists in Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals
by Ken Ballen
Free Press
Former US federal prosecutor Ken Ballen has convicted global terrorists but is no hawk. For his fresh, alluringly titled take on terrorism, Ballen delves into their motivation. Most 'are not psychopaths or criminally insane'. Instead, Ballen reports, 'these people know exactly what they are doing, and they believe they're doing the right thing'.
For Terrorists in Love, Ballen interviewed more than 100 extremists in Indonesia, Pakistan, and beyond. He profiles six Muslim holy warriors, from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia. The cast includes ex-al-Qaeda suicide bomber Ahmad Al-Shayea (who survived the detonation of his truck bomb), self-styled 'career terrorist' Zeddy, and Malik, Taliban leader Mullah Omar's personal guru.
Ballen shows the human side of the warped idealists held at a Riyadh 'care centre'. Of the 43 inmates whom Ballen interviewed, Al-Shayea was the most 'striking'. His body showed the scars of the suicide attack he conducted unwittingly, he claimed. Ballen notes the fingers of Al-Shayea's right hand ended in a stump reminiscent of melted candle wax. 'His fingernails were little more than yellowed brown stumps, the colour of toes infected with athlete's foot.'
The explosion that disfigured Al-Shayea happened in 2003. Then 19, he was at the wheel of a butane-gas tanker truck detonated by remote control in Iraq. The blast killed 12 bystanders. His body smoked.
After, Al-Shayea was consumed with bitterness towards al-Qaeda, which apparently tricked him into becoming a bomber by asking him to 'deliver' the truck it had rigged with the bomb.