CNN -- At first , no one seemed to notice the young man who walked into the hotel lobby at around 7:45 that Friday morning . Boys ( whose faces are blurred out in this photo ) attend a `` summer camp '' sponsored by Hamas . He wore a baseball cap , a backpack and dragged a wheeled suitcase behind him . He casually checked his watch as he calmly walked toward a hotel restaurant filled with Western business executives . A hotel security camera caught what happened next . In a matter of moments , the lobby was engulfed in billowing white smoke and flying debris . Another suspected suicide bomber had left his bloody mark . The bombing at the JW Marriott Hotel and the adjacent Ritz-Carlton in Jakarta , Indonesia , on July 17 killed nine people , including the presumed bombers . Investigators are looking at a link between the attacks and a Muslim terrorist group fighting a `` holy war '' against the West . Terrorism is not confined to any faith or any culture . Terrorists are driven by varying impulses . Yet since the September 11 , 2001 , terrorist attacks on America , terrorism has often been associated with young Muslim men . Watch as CNN 's Christiane Amanpour investigates how one madrassa student is recruited to join the Taliban » . People often assume that Muslim youth who turn to violence are ill-educated fanatics inspired by visions of meeting virgins in paradise . But that portrait is rarely true , terror experts say . `` They are not crazy people , '' says James Jones , author of `` Blood That Cries Out From the Earth , '' a book that examines the psychology of religious terrorism . `` They [ terrorist groups ] wo n't recruit psychotic people , '' Jones says . `` Crazy people are unstable . That 's exactly what you do n't want . '' Then who are these Muslim men and women who turn to violence ? Terror experts say they are shaped by several common factors . They see no way up or out . Fathali M. Moghaddam , director of the conflict resolution program at Georgetown University in Washington , says some Muslim youth may embrace violent causes because they believe they have no chance for upward mobility in their country . `` Imagine if you 're a 20-year-old and you want to get on in Egypt or Saudi Arabia , '' Moghaddam says . `` You better be connected by family or know somebody important . '' Many do n't view politics as a plausible vehicle for social change , Moghaddam says . Their countries are often run by dictators who crush secular opposition groups -- with the tacit support of the U .S . government , these youth believe , Moghaddam says . The only opposition groups that these Middle East dictators dare not attack are those based in the mosque , Moghaddam says . Those mosque-based groups , though , tend to be open to the influence of fundamentalists . `` There 's no opportunity for voice , no opportunity to express yourself , '' Moghaddam says . `` Politics is out of the question for the secular opposition -- you 're either dead or go to jail . '' Politics , though , is part of the answer for Hamas , an Islamic fundamentalist group that rules Gaza . The group , which has admitted responsibility for attacks against Israel soldiers and civilians , won a landslide victory in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election . Watch a young man who chooses to join the Hamas militia » . `` Some young people are inevitably attracted to the more risky positions and actions taken by a group such as Hamas because Hamas is critical of corrupt and inept dictators in the Arab world , '' Moghaddam says . `` This resonates with Arab youth . '' They 're driven by a sense of humiliation . Some Muslim youth may turn to violence for another reason : revenge . Basel Saleh , an assistant economics professor at Radford University in Virginia , recently studied the socioeconomic factors that helped shape 82 Palestinian suicide bombers and 240 militants . He says he knows those factors firsthand . Saleh 's father 's village was razed by the Israelis in 1948 and is now an Israeli settlement . He says he grew up in the West Bank where he once considered using violence to vent his anger after a group of Israeli soldiers came to his family 's home unannounced and interrogated him while his younger sister cried . `` But I was on the verge of getting there , '' he says . `` I almost crossed that line . '' Most Palestinian youth who did cross that line were n't driven by religion , Saleh says . `` Many were n't motivated by Islamic fundamentalism , '' Saleh says of the Palestinian militants in his study . `` They were motivated primarily by personal grievances . They had been arrested , shot or seen family arrested . '' Saleh says some Palestinian youth who believe Israeli soldiers have mistreated their family members may feel duty-bound to retaliate with violence . Protecting one 's family against humiliation is important in Middle Eastern culture , he says . `` If anything is done to your family , it 's personal , '' Saleh says . `` It has to do with the honor of the family . Family is everything in the Middle East . Your honor is defined by your family . '' Saleh says if Israel did more to help improve Palestinians ' living conditions , fewer Palestinian youths would turn to violence . `` You have to open a new path for them [ Palestinians ] , '' he says . `` They want freedom of movement . Give them an airport , a port . Do n't demolish their schools and their universities . Pay attention to basic human rights . '' The anger felt by some Palestinian youth is also stoked by propaganda , says Michael Jacobson , a senior fellow in The Washington Institute 's Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence . Hamas sponsors children television shows and summer camps that are designed to indoctrinate Palestinian children with the same message , Jacobson says . Watch Amanpour go inside a Hamas boys summer camp » . `` From an early age , they 're taught that fighting the jihad against Israel and being a martyr are great things to be , '' says Jacobson , author of `` The West at War : U.S. and European Counterterrorism Efforts Post-September 11 . '' Other extremist groups use another medium , the Internet , to radicalize Muslim youth , says Jones , author of `` Blood That Cries Out From the Earth . '' Muslim youth who spend time on the Internet are exposed to sophisticated videos from terrorist groups showing Muslims being killed in places such as the West Bank , Iraq and Chechnya , Jones says . The sophisticated videos tell the life stories of young Muslims who have volunteered to be martyrs , Jones says . `` There 's this constant message that Islam is under attack , '' Jones says . `` Your brothers and sisters are being killed . It 's your duty to do something for them . '' They 're driven by a need to join a cause . Jones says the appeal of terrorist groups taps into an even deeper yearning in many youth , no matter their religion or culture : the desire to give one 's self to a transcendent cause . Jones , who joined civil rights demonstrations in the South during the 1960s , says he knows how exhilarating it can be for young people to join a cause that they believe demands some form of sacrifice . Any effort to turn Muslim youth away from violent groups must make a similar appeal , and come from fellow Muslims , Jones says . `` We need something that has an equal amount of passion and moral seriousness that makes them believe they are making the world better , '' he says . `` We need something with those elements but something that 's more constructive than blowing yourself up . ''
Most stories about young Muslim men are wrong , they say . They say those that turn to violence are motivated by several common factors . Terror ##ists : ' They are not crazy people '