January 22, 2013 Terrorism Expert Anat Berko to Discuss New Book on Suicide Bombers

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Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov

What leads individuals—including women and children—to place explosives on their bodies, kill and injure scores of civilians and take their own lives?

As a woman and a mother, world-renowned terrorism expert Anat Berko won the trust of female suicide bombers in order to conduct research on their motivation. Entering Israel’s most heavily secured prison cells, she met with women and adolescent would-be suicide bombers to record their personal stories.

Berko will discuss her book, “The Smarter Bomb: Women and Children as Suicide Bombers” at noon on Tuesday, Feb. 5 in the Pickford Theater, located on the third floor of the James Madison Building at 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C.

The event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored jointly by the Library’s Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division in cooperation with the Embassy of Israel and the Hebrew Language Table.

Berko, a lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces Reserve Service, conducts research for the National Security Council, and is a research fellow at the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel. A former visiting professor at George Washington University, she is the author of two books on suicide bombers, “The Path to Paradise: The Inner World of Suicide Bombers and Their Dispatchers” (2009) and “The Smarter Bomb” (2012).

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PR 13-017
2013-01-23
ISSN 0731-3527