What motivates the perpetrators of such attacks? In a ground-breaking study, University of Chicago political scientist Robert Papp has shown that there is little connection between religious fundamentalism and suicide attacks. The leading instigators of suicide attacks between 1980 and 2001 were the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a nationalist group whose members, though from Hindu families, are adamantly opposed to religion. Religion does not play as large a role as it is normally accorded.
