ABSTRACT
According to the evidence presented in this book, the majority of those who volunteer for suicide missions do so spontaneously: it is the individual who asks to sacrifice himself. Even the allegations about Chechen women being blackmailed into choosing martyrdom mostly prove to be unfounded: only one such case appears to have been confirmed, and was inflated by the Russian press. Another established finding is that the wish to die does not suffice in order for a terrorist act to be performed. Whenever someone who has decided to take his own life for personal reasons is deployed for a suicide mission, the attack fails: a melancholic who wants to end his life cannot bring himself to kill other people, for taking them with him to the grave would only increase his sense of guilt. 15
