There has been discussions and investigation on the nexus between religion and citizen’s
supports for suicide attacks and terrorist groups conducting such acts. In terms of the
relationship, there were two potent hypotheses attempting to explain the process and
mechanism of the relationship: religious belief hypothesis and coalitional commitment
hypothesis. previous studies examined these hypotheses have been carried out across different
cultural, religious, and political contexts. Until today, however, there are still lack of concrete
evidence, which is generated from empirical studies, supportive evidence for any of these
hypotheses. Therefor this study aims to investigate the association between religion and popular
support for suicide attacks by using a survey data collected from three middle east countries,
Egypt, Morocco, and Pakistan. In analysis, a step-wised regression analysis conducted with a
set of variety of variables considered to be related with the association. This study found that
variables reflecting religious belief hypothesis, such as prayer to God, religious devotion were
unrelated to support for suicide attacks. Yet, prayer time predicted reduced supports for suicide
attacks. Further, attendance at religious services, thought to enhance coalitional commitment,
predicted support for suicide attacks. Yet, it showed negative association with support for
suicide attacks. These findings suggest that regular attendance at religious services and regular
prayer have combined effects reducing on the willing to support for suicide martyrdom.
However, this study findings affirmatively support for neigher religious belief hypothesis nor
coalitional commitment hypothesis. Instead, it suggests the needs for further research
examination on the relationship as well as corrections of these hypotheses. Finally, Implications
for the research findings for preventing suicide attacks are discussed.