There is no simple answer to the question 'who could become a terrorist?' The general picture of a terrorist is a man or woman brainwashed into becoming a fighter or in extreme cases, a suicide bomber.
The average terrorist is likely to be uneducated, poor, unemployed and unsophisticated. In the case of organisations such as the LTTE, most cadres have simply been conscripted while still in their teens.
However, recent acts of terror in the UK and elsewhere have perplexed terrorism experts, sociologists and criminologists as the perpetrators did not match the profile of the average terrorist.
The brains behind the 'flaming Jeep' attack on the Glasgow Airport and the Mercedes car bombs in London (which were fortunately found before they could be triggered off) were doctors, medical students and engineers from Iraq, Jordan and South Asia.
They were from good families that were economically stable and they apparently had no reason to harbour a grudge against the country they were in. Perhaps the one thing that united them was a belief that Islam was in danger.
The extent to which global terrorism, spearheaded by the likes of al-Qaeda and indeed, the LTTE, can influence sane individuals, can be gauged from the fact that the Glasgow Jeep attackers were doctors.
That is the last profession one would associate with killing and attempting to take one's own life through an act of terror. Yet it happened.
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