From Salman Hameed's blog, Irtiqa:
Scott Atran was our Science & Religion Lecture Series speaker at Hampshire College on March 25th. His topic looked at political, religious, and social motivations for violence. In particular, he looked at motivations of suicide bombers and the conflict in the Middle East. If you want to know how terrorism cells are formed, check out his long and detailed description of the group that was responsible for the terrible 2004 Madrid train bombings (you have to be patient to get all the details). This is all the more relevant when we are all trying to understand the transformation of Faisal Shahzad, a seemingly well-settled immigrant from Pakistan, into the Time Square bomber. This is a thought-provoking talk even if you end up disagreeing with his conclusions. Here is the video of his talk For Friends and Faith: Understanding the Paths and Barriers to Political Violence (video of Q&A and abstract for his talk is below). Enjoy!
And here is the Q & A: