ISLAMABAD, Jan 12: Suicide bombers are not necessarily uneducated, poor and psychopaths but are as much economically well-off as their surrounding population.

These views were expressed by a leading Australia-based Pakistani sociologist, Dr Riaz Hassan, who was delivering a lecture on suicide bombers here on Wednesday.

He said the suicide bombers opted to use their lives as a weapon against a powerful enemy to bring honour and power to their suppressed nation and compel the occupying foreign forces to leave their land.

Dr Hassan described some novel facts and figures he had gathered while conducting his ongoing research on suicide bombers. About 66 per cent of the Palestinian suicide bombers were high school or university graduates.

Mr Bush, he said, termed suicide bombers as 'evil cowards', Senator Warner called them 'irrational' and media and governments showed them as 'craven homicidal lunatics' which was not based on facts.

He said people opted for premeditated targeted use of self- destruction to challenge an enemy which was bigger and mightier than them and could not be fought back successfully through normal means.

To the surprise of many, Dr Hassan said, there had been a considerable decrease in the number of terrorist activities committed since 1990s compared to that of 1987. However, the number of suicide bombers was increasing in the absence of balance of power between nations and the unipolar world where many countries were losing their dignity, honour and respect.

He said suicide bombing constituted only three per cent of the total terrorist activities, but caused 48 per cent of all deaths. Therefore, suppressed nations were resorting to suicide bombings and their number could increase in future, he added.

He said the western media wrongly attached suicide with Islam. In 100 AD, Jewish sect of zealots - Sicari - practised suicide in Roman occupied Judea while the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and the Japanese in Second World War, both non-Muslims, carried out suicide attacks.

Describing the results of suicide attacks, Dr Hassan said it had been successful in October 1983 when Hezbollah targeted Americans and French international peace keeping forces and compelled them to leave Lebanon. Since the second Intifada, he said, the Israelis had started redefining Palestinians from 'uneducated cruel' to 'educated cruel' after facing suicide attacks from Hamas.

Despite the success of various law enforcement organizations to reduce the number of terrorist activities, the ratio of suicide bombers, who caused more destruction due to the easy availability of modern weapons and explosives, was going up gradually.

The aim of suicide bombers was not to die but to serve as a tool for greater goals which might be achieved by his nation after his death. People around the world had started changing their viewpoints about suicide attacks since preemptive US strikes against Afghanistan and Iraq and the Israeli highhandedness in Palestine.