The Cult of the Suicide Bomber 

Former CIA agent Robert Baer returns to the Middle East with director Kevin Toolis to explore the history, politics and psychology behind the development of suicide warfare. Beginning with the story of the world's first suicide bomber, 13-year-old Iranian Hossein Fahmideh, Baer tracks the origins of this pathological social virus; its historic antecedents, its new traditions, and the quasi-religious cult that now surrounds this once unthinkable act. From the gaudy graveyard of martyrs just outside Tehran to the shrine-like living rooms of the bombers' proud families, Baer takes us inside a world where violence has becomes a sacred tradition and an integral part of the political landscape. Throughout the exploration of this disturbing new trend in conflict, Baer reaches one inescapable conclusion: that expanded, intensive human intelligence is the only defense against the virulent new form of warfare.