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Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles

Two thirds of all suicide bombings in this whole world have been committed by the Tamil terrorist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and not by any fundamentalist religious group, said terrorism expert Jason Pate.

Pate, attached to the prestigious Monterey Institute of International Studies told reporter Nanette Asimov of the San Francisco Chronicle that the Tiger suicide bombers committed those acts of violence not for any fundamentalist cause but to carve out a state exclusively for the Tamils.

The newspaper said since 1980 those who were engaged in terrorism used 280 people who were prepared to die for a cause mostly by becoming walking bombs. Two thirds of the people, 160 according to this analysis were Tamils who belonged to the LTTE., But other analysts said the number could be higher since Tamil Tigers own announcement in June over their clandestine radio, The Voice of the Tigers said 217 suicide bombers known as 'Black Tigers' had died. Whatever may be the accurate figure The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam remain the world leaders of the suicide bombings.

The Northern California based newspaper also interviewed two other terrorism experts with Jason Pate for this story on suicide bombers. The St. Andrews University terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratne and Boaz Ganor, director of Israel's International Policy institute for Counter Terrorism were the other two interviewed.

Jason Pate told Asimov, that the Black Tigers, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suicide unit that killed Indian Prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 also appears to be escalating activity now. He said on September 16 the Tamil terrorists carried out one of their largest suicide attacks ever against the Sri Lankan government, attempting to ram 20 explosive packed boats into a navy vessel carrying 1200 military personnel.

Jason Pate said the military thwarted a full-scale attack but 11 Sri Lankan sailors and 20 Tamil rebels died in the attempt.

But Jason Pate said, in the past their approach had been to mostly attack individuals.

Rohan Gunaratne the terrorism expert from the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the St. Andrews University in Scotland told the same interviewer Nanette Asimov, that the suicide terrorism attacks in New York and Washington DC, September 11 were the first to be carried out in the West in 20 years.

Gunaratne who co-authored a seminal study of Osama bin Laden and his global Al Queda network in a recent issue of Janes Intelligence Review told Asimov the suicide attack also marked the first airborne suicide operations since the early 80's when the modern era of terrorism began.

If you are worried about getting injured or killed, you cannot do your best in a military operation, Gunaratne told the Chronicle and added, 'So, the advantage is that the suicide terrorist would take the maximum risk to destroy the target.'

He said one concern of terrorist groups had been the 'endurance period' - how long a recruit can last in a secular society without succumbing to temptations.

In situations like that Gunaratne told the interviewer, 'To ensure that he does not change his mind others follow him around. They preach him selected verses in the Koran. They remind him: You'll be a martyr. You will be remembered for generations'.

Though suicide is against the teachings of Islam, Martyrdom is embraced. The Koran says a martyr may go directly to heaven after death, avoiding the usual period of suffering before meeting god.

Boaz Ganor, of Israel's Institute for Counter Terrorism to the Chronicle interviewer that terrorists with political agenda are able to use the religious reverence for martyrdom as a persuasive too. He said suicide attackers are often told that they would get permission to send 70 members of his family directly to heaven. He said another belief is that the martyr will find 72 virgins waiting for him in heaven.

Ganor said, 'To show how concrete this notion is, about two months ago in Gaza strip, we found a suicide attacker who had covered his intimate organ with pieces of toilet paper to guard and preserve it for heaven'.

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