As the number of female terrorists and suicide bombers has increased several hundredfold in the past few years, the trend has been accompanied by a barrage of misinformation and misperception about what is actually going on. Many people have assumed that women could not consciously choose to participate in terrorism of their own volition. The underlying assumption is that a man made her do it. In their attempts to explain women’s involvement in terrorism for a general audience, journalistic accounts have presented a far too simple and unidimensional account of the phenomenon.
We need to work past gender stereotypes and begin to examine the conditions that really influence female violence. We do not want to excuse the women’s behavior, nor do we want to denude their actions of their political motivation. Lots of women are just as bloodthirsty as the male members of terrorist groups, but women’s motivations tend to be intricate, multi-layered, and inspired on a variety of levels. Anger, sorrow, the desire for revenge, and nationalist or religious zeal coalesce in ways that make any simple explanation impossible. Given that terrorist groups gain so much from women’s participation, it is far easier to understand why terrorist groups seek female activists than to explain why women oblige them by heeding the call to action.
I have attempted to make these complexities accessible for as wide an audience as possible, from the general reader to the counterterrorism analyst. I aim to clarify the various reasons why women might choose terror and to explain the many roles they take on when they make that choice.
My work has always sought to bridge the divide between political science and policy. To understand what is going on, I have found we need to better understand the past. If we fail to take into account the history of violence, we will never be able to anticipate what is likely to happen in the future.
The stories presented in this book shed light on the conditions under which women are mobilized themselves or mobilize others for terrorism. The book also explains the unique pressures women face during conflict and how they can become involved in the struggle, sometimes against their will. The women presented here encompass a spectrum of involvement and provide an insider’s view of the many faces of women and terror.
A few comments regarding names. Where possible, I have used the most common transliterations, although this poses some problems when multiple spellings exist simultaneously. For Russian names, the female patronymic always includes an a, and so within the same family, the women’s last names will be Ganiyeva, for example, while the men’s will be Ganiyev. I have followed standard usage in academic literature and used the a rather than the e for Russian transliteration—for example, Basayev rather than Basaev or Besaev. Also, where either a b or a p is used, I have deferred to the p, and so, for instance, have used the name Vagapov rather than Vagabov, although both occur in journalists’ accounts.
For Chechen names, an additional complication is that Chechens often have official names, which appear on their passports but are rarely used within the family, and nicknames, regularly used at home. For the purposes of consistency, I have provided the reader with both. In many cases the nickname makes sense, and Raisa becomes Reshat, for example; in other cases, however, the nickname has little or no connection to the passport name, and thus Fatima might become Milana.
As for Arabic names, I have used the most common spelling for the names of individuals and organizations, although this too might cause some confusion. Thus the Lebanese terrorist group Party of Allah, more commonly known as Hizb‘allah, can be spelled as Hezbollah, Hizbullah, Hizbollah, or Hizballah. I have chosen the most anglicized version, Hezbollah. The same considerations apply to the name Muhammed, which can also be spelled as Muhammad or Mohammed. Where possible, I have provided the reader with the simplest translations of foreign material when I have used sources in Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, or Russian.