Many of the victims were students who had gathered near a government building to register for scholarships to study in Turkey.

The al-Qaeda affiliated group al-Shabab claimed responsibility.

It is always difficult to imagine what could motivate an individual, whether in Somalia or Afghanistan or anywhere to carry out such a horrific attack.

Author Ken Ballen has tried to grapple with the logic.

He interviewed more than a hundred extremists for his new book “Terrorists in Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals.”

Among those he profiles is a star-crossed couple.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman, this is The World. The bomb that exploded today on a busy street in Mogadishu was huge even by Somali standards. It was hidden in a truck containing piles of scrap metal. The blast killed at least 70 people and left scores injured. Afterward, shocked emergency workers combed the smoldering scene to help the wounded. Many of the victims were students. They’d gathered near a government building to register for scholarships to study in Turkey. The al-Qaeda affiliated Islamist group, al-Shabab, claimed responsibility. Al-Shabab has long been at war with Somalia’s struggling transitional government. But on a personal level, it’s always difficult to imagine what could motivate an individual whether in Somalia or Afghanistan or anywhere to carry out such a horrific attack. Author Ken Ballen has tried to grapple with the logic. He interviewed nearly 100 extremists for his new book, Terrorists In Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals. Among those he profiles in a star-crossed couple.

Ken Ballen: In Saudi Arabia one young man fell in love with a young woman. They were like a Jihadi Romeo and Juliet if you will, and he wasn’t allowed to marry his sweetheart because he didn’t have the $30,000 dowry. So he went to Iraq to fight in noble Jihad because if he died he could go to heaven and in heaven he could marry his sweetheart.

Werman: I mean sexual oppression among young people like the young man in the first chapter and the Romeo and Juliet couple, it’s one of the themes that runs through these profiles. What role does it play in these people becoming Jihadists?

Ballen: I think it plays a large role. There was another fellow in Pakistan who when he was 11 years old, he came from a very wealthy family. His father was a colonel who guards that country’s nuclear weapons, so he came from a very wealthy family, very privileged. He was raped in school at 11 years old. Several years later he too fell in love with a young woman and he was beaten because of the love He turned to God for solace. You see this pattern over and over and over again. One fellow, Ahmad, blew him self up in Iraq and when he met an American army nurse it was the first time he had ever met a woman outside his own family, and he was transformed by that experience.

Werman: I mean Ahmad is an interesting case. You found him, if you read between the lines, rather endearing.

Ballen: I did. He went to fight in Iraq. As I said, he blew himself up in an attack, but in many ways he was duped. And when he met the Americans and saw what the Americans were like he said to me, al-Qaeda tried to use me as a piece of rotten meat. The Americans treated me with dignity and respect. He’s a very pro-American person right now and you can feel that when you talk to him from his hear. He’s still a strong Muslim, he’s still very much believes in the faith, but he also saw a totally different world when he was exposed to Americans who treated him kindly at Abu Ghraib of all places, which has a very different reputation.

Werman: I was going to say, it’s fascinating. I mean here you actually in a way, you followed those infamous photos taken by US GIs in Abu Grhaib, and Ahmad sees those and that’s what prompts him to become a suicide bomber.

Ballen: There was a whole array of religious and psychological factors. He had a difficult relationship with his father. He joined a gang. He felt tremendous guilt over the gang. And seeing those photos of the prisoners being abused was the prompt that lead him to feel that Jihad could be the answer in going off to Iraq to fight.

Werman: Remind us what happens to Ahmad, because you said he was duped. Just how badly was he duped?

Ballen: He was duped fairly…I mean he knew he was fighting, he knew he wanted to kill Americans because he felt that that was God’s calling, but he didn’t know he was going into a suicide attack. And some people say to me, well, how come he didn’t know that? Well, I interviewed scores and scores of Jihadi and I found this pattern of al-Qaeda duping a lot of young men who didn’t want to die, they wanted to fight, but they didn’t want to die. And if you recall, even bin Laden himself on that famous December 2001 tape where he’s talking about the 9/11 attacks, laughs at how he duped some of the hijackers who didn’t know they were gonna die.

Werman: Tell us the story of Ahmad. I mean essentially he was getting very anxious to do something, to fight Jihad and what his bosses then set him up for?

Ballen: He tells a very interesting story about arriving in Iraq with 45 other Jihadis from all over the Muslim world. And they arrived there and the leader of al-Qaeda tells them all of you young men are on a noble mission, you will die for God, this is the highest calling there is, who wants to volunteer to join the suicide attack right now so they can meet their maker in heaven? And nobody volunteered.

Werman: Right, because they didn’t know that was what it was about. They ust went to fight.

Ballen: They went to fight. Now, if they died they’d have the notion of going to heaven, which was a powerful incentive, but that didn’t mean they wanted to kill themselves. As Ahmad said to me, didn’t mean I wanted to kill myself right away, I mean I kind of want to fight and do some good on earth before I get to heaven.

Werman: So he’s outside Baghdad. His bosses say we’re gonna get in this fuel truck and drive into town. Tell us what happens then.

Ballen: He’s in the fuel truck and it’s the first time in months that he’s been in Iraq that he’s actually having a normal conversation with two of the Jihadis. They’re joking around in the way that young men between the ages of 18 and 24 like to joke…about bodily functions and all of that. And for the first time he’s in Iraq he actually feels happy. He feels like he’s with other people, he feels like he’s doing some good. And then they’re driving along in Baghdad. He doesn’t even know how to drive the tanker truck. And about 1,000 feet before a concrete barrier the other two Iraqi Jihadi jump out of the truck. This is a big tractor trailer truck filled with liquid propane, and within a matter of seconds it blew up.

Werman: Right, you’re an American Mr. Ballen and acting kind of as a psychoanalyst for these people. How do you know they’re not just telling you what they think you want to hear or what might gain them favor?

Ballen: Well, one fellow, Malik, who’s a Taliban fighter, he was holding my hand as a sign of friendship. And he said to me and he began to tear because he began to incite a saying of the prophet Muhammad, and he said, the day of judgement will not come until the Muslims kill every single Jew; if the Jew is hiding behind a stone, the stone will cry out ‘oh, Muslim, kill the Jew.’ This was while he was holding my hand knowing I was a Jew. So, I don’t think they were telling me everything I wanted to hear.

Werman: So you think the fact as well that you’re Jewish affected your interaction with these people?

Ballen: Deeply, there was another instance where I was with Shahid who was once part of a cell. He didn’t participate in it, he got out of it, but his colleagues were involved in the bombing of the Marriott hotel. And I told him a dream that I had, which he interpreted as some kind of a religious vision. And he was so moved by that, that a Jew, that an American, that a so-called infidel could actually have this kind of religious vision that it overcame him. So I never hid it from people that I talked to. I brought it out because it was a way to provoke their inner thoughts and their feelings.

Werman: So let me ask you, Mr. Ballen, how should this unique understanding of who these people are now change how the US approaches a policy from militant Islam.

Ballen: I think of the story of Kamal. His father, one of the highest religious officials in Saudi Arabia, perhaps even in the Muslim world, his world view is that every Christian, every infidel, every Jew is headed for hell. That’s not Kamal’s world view. His world view is that there’s a place in heaven for everyone. So, within the faith there is movement and I think the United States must give respect to that, must engage in dialogue, and must understand that this is something that has to come from Muslims themselves, these changed attitudes, not from the United States trying to impose its will or its vision on other people.

Werman: Author Ken Ballen spent five years interviewing more than 100 extremists throughout the Muslim world. His new book is called Terrorists in Love. Ken Ballen, thank you so much.

Ballen: Thank you, it’s been a pleasure to be on.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Peter Bergen interviews Ken Ballen about “Terrorists In Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals”

• BBC coverage
• Guardian coverage

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  This is The World, I’m Marco Werman.  The Obama administration has given the green light to capture or kill a U.S. born Muslim cleric.  Anwar al Awlaki, born in New Mexico, is said to be hiding out in Yemen.  The Muslim cleric has been linked to the Christmas Day bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as well as Major Nidal Hassan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood last November.  The World’s Jeb Sharp reports on what the effort might look like to eliminate a man described by one U.S. lawmaker as the single biggest threat to the U.S.

JEB SHARP:  It’s no secret that the United States has a targeted killing program that goes after Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects.  Gary Solis ran the Law of War program at West Point for six years and is the author of the new book “The Law of Armed Conflict”.

GARY SOLIS:  Early in the war on terror President Bush first generated a list of individuals who may be targeted, a Presidential finding.  So this is very common and it is updated regularly and this individual is now on it.  And what is different about it is that he is a U.S. citizen.

SHARP: Solis says he can’t speak for the CIA, but he has a pretty good idea how the Department of Defense would proceed.  The list would be passed on to intelligence services who would try to pin point the individual’s location.  If that can be done, U.S. forces would then target the suspect with a missile fired from a drone.  That’s assuming there were no friendly forces who could do the job on the ground.  It may sound straight forward, but targeted killing raises profound ethical questions. Gary Solis believes drones are lawful weapons, but he says you have to use them with, and these are legal terms, “distinction” and “proportionality.”

SOLIS: The problem is knowing that we are targeting the right individual.  In a world where most people wear white robes and turbans, how do we know that this individual in a white robe and a turban is the person we want?

SHARP: Solis says even if you do know it’s the right person, then you have the problem of trying to kill them without killing other people.

SOLIS: We don’t want to target this individual when he’s in the middle of a praying crowd.  Ideally if you’re going to fire a hellfire missile at somebody, he will be in the middle of the desert alone.

SHARP: But that’s often not the case, and there are inevitably civilian casualties associated with drone attacks.  Amos Guiora, professor of Law at the University of Utah, says those civilian casualties raise questions about the criteria the United States is using, both in whom it targets, and how it carries out operations.  Guiora says the legal rationale for targeted killing is based on the concept of self-defense.

AMOS GUIORA:  But what’s important here is the following:  drone attacks are legal only if the action is based on intelligence information indicating future action.  I have long argued that if it’s based on revenge, meaning there is no intelligence information suggesting future action, then that’s not self-defense.

SHARP: That’s a significant distinction and it’s not clear how closely the United States adheres to that principle, because the rules governing the targeted killing program are not known.  The ACLU recently filed a Freedom of Information Act request with U.S. government agencies to try to get more information.  The ACLU’s Jonathan Manes says this case involving a U.S. citizen only underscores the lack of transparency surrounding U.S. targeted killing policies.

JONATHAN MANES:  One thing that’s a little bit surprising about the situation is that right now we know more about when the government can get a warrant to wiretap a U.S. citizen abroad than to kill a U.S. citizen abroad.  That seems quite strange and we’re hoping that the government will be a little more forthcoming about what the parameters of this program are.

SHARP: Meanwhile the program continues apace.  Every few days there’s word of another drone attack that has killed both militants and innocent civilians.  Proponents say the drones are an effective weapon against terrorists.  Critics worry they make killing far too easy.  For The World I’m Jeb Sharp.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Professor Guiora’s article in Foreign Policy

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

JEB SHARP: One tactic Israel has used against Hamas in Gaza is the targeted killing of militant leaders. That’s a tactic the United States has used too against suspected terrorists in other parts of the world. We’ve heard recently about CIA plans to conduct targeted killings of senior Al-Qaeda members. Those plans were never used before CIA director Leon Panetta cancelled them last month. Amos Guiora was a legal advisor to the Israeli defense commander in Gaza from 1994 to 1997. In that capacity he gave legal advice on targeted killings. He says there are several legal and moral complexities to consider.

AMOS GUIORA: The most important aspect of targeted killings to understand is what I call a four-part analysis which requires us to think about international law; questions of morality; how we gather intelligence; and also how we determine effectiveness. Because at the end of the day what we’re talking about is the dilemma of the decision maker that the decision maker being the commander. He needs advice but at the end of the day it’s his call. But there are critical issues that go into that decision making and in order to make the most reasoned and cautious decision the commander needs to understand the limits of power. He needs to respect the limits of power. But he also needs to understand that operational counter terrorism requires making those very difficult decisions.

SHARP: The idea of a targeted killing is that one person is targeted but the reality is often that civilians get killed too. When you’re thinking about the issue of what makes a targeted killing legal how do you reconcile that with the fact that killing innocents is still wrong?

GUIORA: That’s an outstanding question. So first of all, international law talks about collateral damage. But it says that the commander must make every reasonable effort to minimize collateral damage which translates crassly and roughly into an understanding of the forefathers of international law that when you’re engaged in operational counter terrorism there’s always a chance that innocent civilians will be injured or killed. The requirement of the commander is obviously to minimize that. Nowhere does it say that there can be no loss of life amongst innocent civilians. That said it is clearly one of the considerations or calculations of making the decisions. You know the hit will be done in such a way that the person will be in that particular moment not surrounded by innocents. Obviously there clearly have been examples where the target killing has gone forward and as a result of which innocent civilians were killed and then that obviously raises important legal and moral questions.

SHARP: You are dealing with a military program aimed at stopping suicide bombings but here in the US now we’re talking about a CIA program targeting terrorists overseas. How are these situations different from each other?

GUIORA: Well I think if we think about the CIA program that the first question we would have to ask ourselves is whether or not it’s future preventive, predicated or retribution predicated. I would argue, without knowing all the facts of the CIA program, but I would suggest that if the plan was retribution based killing somebody for an act done in the past without any intelligence information suggesting future activity that kind of program would not meet my four-part test. On the other hand if the program was intended to prevent future acts of terrorism based on intelligence information that reliable, credible, viable, and valid then I would say that would meet international law standards. So the fundamental question which needs to be asked is whether or not the program is future based or past based.

SHARP: Why do you think CIA director Leon Panetta shut the American program down?

GUIORA: As far as I can tell from you know what one reads and what one hears because I think there was concern exactly on that issue was that past or future what kind of intelligence had been gathered and whether it really was preventive or more retribution based. And I think maybe, again based only what I’ve been able to read, that there was maybe concern as to whether or not congress had been fully kept abreast of the program which raises other equally significant questions in the American paradigm in terms of checks and balances and separation of powers in terms of when does the executive have to confer with the congress.

SHARP: Yeah that’s interesting that the controversy seems to focus on the secrecy of the program and yet there are all these larger issues to discuss. I mean what do you think is the main issue that should discussed in reference to this apparent program?

GUIORA: Well I think that almost eight years after 9/11 the time has come for the American public to begin – underline the word begin – having a serious discussion about what are America’s counter terrorism policies. I would suggest that eight years later we really haven’t had that discussion. We’ve had maybe discussions about tactics but I don’t think we’ve had the kind of sophisticated candid discussion about strategy and policy. And I think you’re absolutely right the response seems to be to cancel the program because congress wasn’t briefed or congress is upset because congress wasn’t briefed. That’s not the issue. And we’ve never really engaged in that very, very difficult discussion about what exactly are we trying to do and what are the limits of what we’re trying to do.

SHARP: Amos Guiora is a professor of law at the University of Utah. He served in the Israeli defense forces judge advocate general’s core for 19 years. Thanks so much for talking to us.

GUIORA: Thank you so much for having me.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.