When it comes to explaining lone wolf terrorism, the absence of women is one of the more perplexing issues. After all, women have played significant roles in terrorist groups throughout history, and a few have ascended to leadership positions. Terrorists as diverse as the Russian revolutionary group Narodnaya Volya, the German leftist Baader-Meinhof Gang, the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and the Palestinian al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, to name just a few, have all had women in their ranks. Women have been used in various roles within terrorist organizations, including providing logistical support, joining their male comrades in violent attacks, and even becoming suicide bombers themselves. Women have been involved in virtually every type of terrorist tactic used by a group, ranging from hijackings and midair plane bombings to armed assaults and kidnappings.
Yet with only a few exceptions, all lone wolf terrorists have been male. It is not as though women are excluded from becoming lone wolves. This form of terrorism is an equal-opportunity employer. No barriers would seem to exist in preventing a woman from venturing out on her own to blow up a building, hijack a plane, or initiate a mass shooting. Why, then, has lone wolf terrorism been a male-dominated activity? In order to answer this question, we have to first examine the role of women in various terrorist groups both today and in earlier periods for any clues as to why women have not acted as lone wolf terrorists.
FEMALE PARTICIPATION IN TERRORIST GROUPS
When women began embarking on suicide operations in recent years as members of various terrorist movements, people were understandably shocked. The public had grown accustomed to male suicide bombers, but the idea that a woman would also blow herself up in order to kill innocent victims was mind-boggling. The concept of a female terrorist was still something most people had a hard time grasping, despite the fact that women had participated in terrorist groups for a long time. Beginning with the Russian terrorists in the late-nineteenth century and continuing today with both Islamic and non-Islamic militant groups, women have consistently been integral players in the world of terrorism.
Terrorism was rampant in Russia in the 1880s, as the first modern terrorist group, Narodnaya Volya (“The People's Will”), waged a relentless campaign of dynamite bombings against government officials, culminating in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Dynamite, which was invented in 1867 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, was a godsend for anarchists and other militants, since it was a powerful weapon that was easy to conceal. Nobel was so dismayed to see his invention used for violent purposes—he had intended it to be used for peaceful endeavors such as construction—that he left millions of dollars in his will to establish the annual Nobel Prizes, including the Nobel Peace Prize. The Russian terrorists embraced dynamite because, in addition to its wide availability and easy use, it had an important symbolic value. Since the assailant was usually killed along with the targeted person, it separated the terrorists from common criminals, who would be afraid to use such a weapon.1 It also inspired admiration among some segments of the public, since the perpetrators were basically sacrificing their lives in the attacks.
Women were quite prominent in Narodnaya Volya. There were ten females among the twenty-nine members of the original executive committee.2 Throughout the 1880s, women participated directly in the group's operations.3 Nearly a quarter of all Russian terrorists during this period were women.4 It was a woman, in fact, who inspired the Russian terrorist movement. As I noted in chapter 1, Vera Zasulich's proclamation that she was a “terrorist, not a killer” after shooting a police commander in 1878 made her a heroine throughout Russia. Narodnaya Volya was eventually crushed by the new regime of Tsar Alexander III, after the assassination of his father, Tsar Alexander II. This led to a reduction in terrorist attacks. Terrorism, however, was revived in Russia in the early 1900s by the Socialist Revolutionary Party, with women once again being very active. In fact, from 1905 to 1908, there were eleven terrorist attacks committed by Socialist Revolutionary women.5
It would be several decades, however, before women once again became prominent in terrorist activities. The late 1960s and early 1970s witnessed a surge in terrorism around the world, with many spectacular incidents captivating public attention. Palestinian militants were at the forefront of this violence. In July 1968, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked an Israeli El Al plane on a flight from Rome to Tel Aviv and diverted it to Algeria. Later that same year, the PFLP attacked an El Al plane at the Athens airport, killing one passenger. There were more attacks on El Al airliners in 1969, including a hijacking in August, in which two PFLP terrorists seized the plane on a flight from Rome to Athens and diverted it to Damascus. After allowing the passengers and crew to disembark, the two terrorists blew up the plane's cockpit. One of the terrorists was a woman, and she quickly gained notoriety and, in some places around the world, admiration. Leila Khaled instantly became the most famous female terrorist of her time. People were mesmerized by the concept of women seizing and blowing up planes or doing other dangerous things thought to be the sole province of men.
It didn't hurt that Leila Khaled was beautiful, smart, and daring. As one observer noted, “She became a sex symbol for her violence; she shattered a million and one taboos overnight; and she revolutionized the thinking of hundreds of other angry young women around the world.”6 Her value to the PFLP was so high that when she was captured during another hijacking less than a year later, the PFLP went all out to gain her release. Khaled and another PFLP member hijacked an El Al plane bound for New York on September 6, 1970. (The PFLP also hijacked three other planes [from Pan American World Airways, Trans World Airlines, and Swissair] bound for New York from European cities on that same day, making it the most spectacular hijacking in terrorism history until the 9/11 hijacking-suicide attacks in the United States.) Israeli security guards on the plane were able to kill Khaled's fellow hijacker and capture her while the plane was still airborne. The plane then landed in London, where British authorities arrested Khaled. The PFLP wanted her released but didn't feel that the British hostages they were holding from the three other hijacked planes would be enough to use as bargaining chips. They wanted something more important, so they came up with a simple solution—hijack a British plane! They did that a few days later and then used the hostages from the British Overseas Airlines Corporation airliner to eventually win Khaled's release.7
Another female hijacker who gained publicity around the world was Julienne Busic, who, along with her husband, Zvonko, and three other Croatian extremists, seized a Trans World Airlines plane flying from New York to Chicago in September 1976. They demanded that a manifesto promoting the cause of Croatian independence from the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav federation be published in several newspapers and that pro-Croatian independence leaflets they had carried with them be dropped by helicopters flying over cities across the United States and Europe. To demonstrate their willingness to kill passengers if their demands weren't met, they told the authorities that they had a bomb aboard the plane and that another explosive device, as well as the manifesto that they wanted published, could be found in a locker across the street from Grand Central Station in New York City. The police located the bomb and took it to a demolition area, where they attempted to trigger it by remote control. When nothing happened after fifteen minutes, the bomb experts approached the device without wearing protective gear, and it exploded, killing one officer and injuring three others.
Meanwhile, the hijacked plane embarked on a long odyssey that included stops in Montreal, Gander, Newfoundland, Reykjavík, and finally Paris, where French authorities shot out the tires from the plane so it could not take off again. Before the ordeal was over, the Croatian independence manifesto was published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times. Leaflets were also dropped over North American cities as well as London and Paris. The hijackers surrendered in Paris and were sent back to the United States. The most remarkable aspect of the hijacking was that the terrorists had no weapons onboard. The “bombs” they claimed they had turned out to be fake, some of them made from clay.8
Just like Leila Khaled after her first hijacking, Julienne Busic, who was born in the United States, was viewed as a heroine by many people in Croatia and other parts of the world. This was yet another example of the famous slogan: “One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.” Busic had poets write to her, and Croatian television, newspapers, and magazines interviewed her after her release from prison.9 Interestingly, both she and Khaled did not consider themselves to be terrorists. Khaled told an interviewer, “My work as a freedom fighter has given me happiness; you identify yourself with the struggle. It is the difference between a freedom fighter and an ordinary person. As a Palestinian I wouldn't be happy with myself unless I was a freedom fighter. I am glad I have done so much.”10 Busic said, “I could never consider myself a terrorist. I'm just not a terrorist. I'm not a criminal, I mean in so far as I have no criminal nature, no criminal mind.”11
There is another similarity between these two female hijackers who had very different backgrounds and causes for which they were fighting. Both Khaled and Busic fell victim to a variation of the “Stockholm Syndrome.” The term originated with a bank robbery and hostage incident in Stockholm, Sweden, in August 1973. The hostage episode lasted five days, with the hostages gradually viewing their captors as their protectors, fearing that a police rescue attempt might result in their deaths. When the gunmen finally surrendered, the hostages were afraid that the police might shoot the gunmen, so the hostages formed a protective shield around them as they all came out of the bank. Some of the hostages said later that they felt no hatred toward their captors. They felt that their captors, by not killing them, had given them their lives back. And one of the hostages actually wound up marrying one of the gunmen while he was serving his prison sentence. Therefore, whenever there is a hostage situation and the hostages, after the ordeal is over, do not condemn their captors, they are described by the media and other observers as having fallen victim to the Stockholm Syndrome. However, this syndrome can affect both the hostages and the hostage takers. The three basic phases of the Stockholm Syndrome are positive feelings of the hostages toward their captors, negative feelings of the hostages toward the police or other government authorities, and the reciprocation of the positive feelings by the captors.12
Julienne Busic had positive feelings for those she was holding captive on the plane. “I felt like I was experiencing sort of a reverse Stockholm Syndrome,” she recalled years later. “It was like I identified with the passengers, too, to the extent that I believed that we were all on the same side.” One former hostage told reporters that Busic “acted almost like a stewardess walking up and down the aisle talking politely to people and calming them.”13 After she was arrested and was in the airport control tower in Paris, she realized that she had in her possession her husband Zvonko's address book. She did not want the authorities to discover this, but she didn't know how to dispose of it. When she saw the released passengers and crew walk by her in the tower, she came up with an idea. “I go up to the steward…and I said, ‘Listen, you've got to hide this for me! Because this is Zvonko's address book!’ And he looked at me like I was crazy. And I was so upset. Because you know we had gone through all this and we were all one big happy family. And now he wouldn't do that.”14
Khaled also identified with her captives. Before she hijacked her first plane in 1969, she was waiting in the lounge to board the aircraft when she saw a little girl playing with her sister. “For the first time I realized that I would be endangering her life,” Khaled said. “If the plane blew up during our hijack, or if it was shot down by Israeli anti-aircraft fire, then those innocent children would die.”15 Khaled was also troubled by a conversation she had with a Greek man before she boarded the plane. He told her that he lived in the United States and was returning to Greece for the first time in many years to visit his mother. This reminded her of separations in her own family when she was growing up. “I knew very well what it meant to be away from home, from your mother and sisters, and I was thinking about this while this man talked to me.” After the hijacking was over, she saw him sitting and crying. She told him, “Now you are OK. We will send your mother a telegram, and she can meet you.”16
The experiences of Khaled and Busic illustrate the emotional effects that a hijacking or other type of hostage episode can have on a female member of a terrorist group. It may well be that some male hijackers have similar experiences, but perhaps there is a “softer” side of the female psyche that may have played a factor, in addition to the Stockholm Syndrome, in these two women identifying with their captives. However, female terrorists can at times be as tough, if not tougher, than their male colleagues. There have been some instances reported in which male terrorists, when faced with a confrontation with police or other counterterrorist forces, hesitated for a moment before they fired their weapons, whereas the female terrorists shot at once. Advice, therefore, reportedly given to European counterterrorist forces by the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) was to “shoot the women first.”17
Another example of the emotional effects a terrorist operation can have on a female extremist can be seen in the case of Susan Albrecht, who was a member of the German Red Army Faction (RAF), which was originally known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Her godfather was Jurgen Ponto, the chairman of Dresdner Bank and the target of a planned RAF kidnapping in 1977. The RAF wanted to take advantage of Albrecht's personal relationship with Ponto in order to gain access to his house. Their objective was to kidnap Ponto and then demand the release of RAF members in prison.
Albrecht, however, refused to help. She told the group that she felt close to her godfather and wouldn't want to harm him in any way. The RAF then applied enormous psychological pressure on Albrecht to get her to participate. As one RAF member pointed out, because she refused to take part in the operation based on emotional reasons, the group accused her of having no political identity and no loyalty to her imprisoned comrades, who would supposedly be freed in return for the release of the kidnapped Ponto. Since the RAF was a small group, isolated from society, it was difficult for Albrecht to continue to voice her opposition to participating in the kidnapping plan. The group was basically her life, her main frame of reference for the entire world.
Psychological pressure was applied over the course of several days, with different RAF members taking turns challenging Albrecht's reasons for not wanting to help in the plot. Finally, the group pressure was too much, and Albrecht agreed to take part in the kidnapping along with two other RAF members. But it all went terribly wrong. One of the RAF members killed Ponto when the group tried to kidnap him at his house. In the aftermath of the killing, Albrecht had a nervous breakdown. She was extremely depressed and no longer capable of performing any functions for the terrorist organization. As one of the RAF members stated, “For days on end, she was shaken by incessant crying spells. She had no strength left. She had broken down completely and should, under normal circumstances, have been hospitalized.” The RAF arranged for her transfer to East Germany, where she assumed a new name, Ingrid Jaeger, got married, and had a child. She was finally arrested in East Berlin in 1990 after the collapse of the Communist regime.18
The RAF was among the terrorist groups of that period that were very female friendly, with a woman, Ulrike Meinhof, having cofounded the group in 1970 (along with Andreas Baader). Meinhof was a left-wing journalist before she helped form the terrorist group. Her name “became associated with the whole era of anti-imperialist protest turned to violence.”19 The RAF was involved in hijackings, kidnappings, assassinations, and other widely publicized terrorist acts. Women were believed at one point to constitute approximately 50 percent of the RAF membership and about 80 percent of the group's supporters.20 One scholar, however, argues that, for the most part, women only served in support roles in the RAF, despite the fact that its cofounder was a woman.21
During its existence, the RAF demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt to changing circumstances in order to survive and remain relevant. The group's initial targets were capitalists and other symbols of the industrialized states, with the goal being to bring about a Marxist-Maoist revolution. In the early 1980s, the group switched its main focus away from business targets that represented capitalism to those representing the US military and NATO. The placement of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe in the early 1980s was highly unpopular among the public, and it led to large-scale, nonviolent protests in many countries. The RAF, therefore, decided to take advantage of this situation by targeting NATO and US military personnel and facilities for terrorist attacks. This did not, however, result in any significant increase in the number of new recruits to the group or in a rallying among the masses to its cause. Therefore, when the Cold War began to wind down in the late 1980s, the RAF had to find a new strategy. As a result, it basically returned to its original cause, focusing once again on capitalist symbols. In 1989, the RAF assassinated Alfred Herrhausen, the chairman of Deutsche Bank, and in 1991, it assassinated Detlev Rohweder, a German government official who was responsible for economic reforms that led to the loss of thousands of jobs.22
By 1998, however, the RAF announced that it was officially disbanding, ending more than two decades of terrorist activities. Its leadership stated in a seven-thousand-word communiqué that they had made a strategic error in not building up a political organization alongside the armed one, and as a result, “the urban guerrilla in the form of the RAF is now history.” It was a remarkable statement, because not many terrorist groups issue official declarations announcing an end to their activity due to their own mistakes in strategy and ideology. As the group acknowledged, “The lack of a political-social organization was a decisive mistake by the RAF. It wasn't the only mistake, but it's one important reason why the RAF could not become a stronger liberation project.” The influence of women in the RAF could also be seen in one of the passages from the final communiqué: “The marketing of people and the violence in the home and on the streets, these are the violence of suppression, the social coldness against others, the violence against women—all of these are expressions of patriarchal and racist conditions.”23
Women were prominent in other terrorist groups in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Red Brigades in Italy and the Weather Underground in the United States. The latter was originally known as the “Weathermen,” but the name was changed to avoid alienating feminist supporters.24 In one shocking episode during that period, Patty Hearst, the granddaughter of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped and then joined the leftist Symbionese Liberation Army in the United States in 1974.
By the 1980s, however, the terrorism of the leftist revolutionary groups was replaced by the emergence of a seemingly more frightening wave of terrorism—namely, religious extremists bent on changing governments and societies to their own fundamentalist beliefs.25 Whereas secular terrorists usually have self-imposed constraints on the level of violence they perpetrate (since they are concerned with not alienating their supporters in the general population and do not want to create an overwhelming response by the targeted country that could result in the elimination of the group), religious extremists march to a different beat. Believing that God is on one's side and that one will be rewarded in the afterlife for committing horrendous crimes on earth is a powerful incentive to keep on fighting, no matter what the consequences.26
The emergence of religious terrorists, particularly Islamic extremists, coincided with the growth in suicide terrorist attacks. Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian Shiite militant group, burst onto the scene in Lebanon in 1983 with a series of suicide bombings, including bombings that targeted the US embassy and US Marine barracks in Beirut.27 But, while many people today still equate suicide attacks with religious extremists, it was actually a secular group in Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), that was responsible for the most suicide attacks in the 1980s and 1990s. By the time the group was defeated by the Sri Lankan army in 2009, after more than twenty-five years of violence, it had committed approximately two hundred suicide attacks. The hostilities pitted the minority Tamils, who are Hindu, against the ruling majority Sinhalese, who are Buddhist. The conflict was a secular one, however, with LTTE's goal being to create a separate, nonreligious Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka. LTTE had no religious or cultural restrictions on using females for their militancy. Women, therefore, committed between 30 and 40 percent of the suicide attacks that LTTE was responsible for. The group was so dedicated to the use of suicide bombings that it formed a special squad for these individuals, known as the “Black Tigers,” and had an annual ceremony to celebrate the squad's accomplishments. The dedication of the group to women's participation could also be seen in LTTE's website, which had separate sections extolling the virtues of the female comrades. Female members of the Black Tigers were responsible for some of LTTE's most high-profile attacks, including the assassination in 1991 of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Another secular group that used women as suicide terrorists was the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), an organization that was very active in the 1990s. Between 1996 and 1999 alone, the PKK, which is comprised of Turkish Kurds fighting to establish an independent Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey, carried out twenty-one suicide attacks or attempted suicide attacks, with women being the suicide terrorists in eleven out of the fifteen successful attacks and in three out of six attacks that were intercepted by Turkish authorities.28
Other terrorist groups that included women in their suicide attacks were the Palestinian al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, and the Chechen rebel movement. All these groups were secular and therefore did not have any religious proscriptions against using women for terrorist activities. The emergence of female Chechen suicide terrorists gave rise to the term “black widows.” Two deadly wars in Chechnya in the 1990s (Chechens were fighting for independence from Russia) left tens of thousands of casualties. Many Chechen women lost their husbands or other relatives in the wars, so once these women began taking part in suicide attacks in Russia, sometimes dressed head-to-toe in black, the popular notion was that they were doing so to exact revenge. Among the female suicide attacks were bombings of planes, a subway system, and a music festival. In addition, women were part of Chechen teams that seized a Moscow theater in 2002 and a Beslan school in 2004, resulting in hundreds of casualties.
Religious extremist groups had long prohibited women from participating in their violent activities in the past. The waging of “jihad,” or holy war, was historically seen as the purview of men. As one terrorism scholar notes, “Given the strict gender demarcation of the public and private sphere in Islam, the resort to violence by women and girls, rather than constituting a restorative act, amounted to a sign of cultural fragmentation.”29 The success of female terrorists in other movements, however, eventually led fundamentalist religious extremist groups, such as Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), to change their practices. The spiritual head of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in 2004, stated in an interview with an Arab journalist in London in August 2001 that “Palestinian women do not need a religious ruling in order to perpetrate a suicide attack.” He claimed that, under certain circumstances, “Islam permits it.” A senior Hamas activist, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, also supported the use of women in suicide operations, stating, “There is no reason that the perpetration of suicide attacks should be monopolized by men.”30
In some cases, though, religious women who are recruited to participate in a suicide mission have problems with shedding their religious appearance in order to not look suspicious when infiltrating the target area prior to carrying out the attack. One such case is that of a would-be female Palestinian suicide terrorist, twenty-six-year-old Thawiya Hamour, who provides us with insight into the thinking of some of these religious female terrorists. Her mission was to set off explosives in a densely populated area in West Jerusalem. She was fitted with an explosive belt and underwent a briefing on how to detonate it.
Hamour, however, was arrested before she could commit the attack, and she revealed in interviews that she had many problems psychologically in carrying out the mission. She stated that her commanders directed her to dress like a Western woman—wearing her hair down, putting on heavy makeup, and wearing tight pants. During media interviews, Hamour stated, “I wasn't afraid. I'm not afraid to die. I went for personal reasons. However, I did not want to arrive ‘upstairs’ (in Paradise) for impure reasons. I did not want to dress that way, because it is against my religion.”31 Another dispute between the would-be suicide terrorist and her handlers was their demand that she detonate the bomb even if she did not reach the target site, such as if there were a chance she had aroused suspicion and would get caught. “To blow myself up for nothing, what for?” she asked. “To die just so that my operators can brag about carrying out a terrorist attack?”32
Female suicide terrorists were also prevalent during the 2003–2011 war in Iraq and US occupation of the country, where it was believed that some women were motivated by the loss of their husbands or other loved ones, just as in the case of the Chechen “black widows.” Specifically, al Qaeda in Iraq, a home-grown Sunni insurgent group that was believed to be led by foreigners, recruited many of these women.33
The widespread use of female suicide bombers in different countries reflects the tactical advantages that women provide for terrorist organizations. First, women are less suspicious than men and are therefore less likely to attract the attention of security personnel. Second, in many of the conservative societies of the Middle East, South Asia, and elsewhere, there is a hesitation to body-search a woman. And third, a woman can wear a suicide device beneath her clothes, appear to be pregnant, and thus easily bypass security while approaching her target.34 However, with the rise in female suicide attacks around the world in recent years, security personnel are becoming more aware of this form of terrorism, thereby eliminating the element of surprise for the female terrorist.
By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the role of women in terrorist organizations has changed from the heyday of female terrorism of the 1960s and 1970s. Whereas women had ascended to leadership and other important positions in the leftist revolutionary groups of that time, the new female terrorists of the twenty-first century are different. In many groups, they have simply been used as cannon fodder, another body to throw at the enemy in a suicide mission. No modern-day group has featured women in leadership roles, and there have been no female terrorists in recent history espousing ideology or gaining the type of worldwide publicity that Leila Khaled and Ulrike Meinhof were able to accomplish during their years of violence.
There have been many different opinions offered for why women join terrorist groups in general and become suicide bombers in particular. Some of these explanations point to a desire to achieve a level of status and respect in a society that is normally precluded for them. Others point to the exploitation and manipulation of these women by male leaders and recruiters of the terrorist organizations. Still others argue that women join for the same reasons men join—namely, to overthrow a government, establish a homeland, promote global revolution, and so forth. Meanwhile, studies have found that female suicide bombers tend to be mostly young, usually between the ages of seventeen and twenty-four, although there have been some who were as young as fifteen and others who were as old as sixty-four. These women come from various educational, religious, social, and personal backgrounds, with the more educated among them, including lawyers, paramedics, and students, accounting for the highest percentage of suicide attacks by women. It has also been found that most of the female suicide terrorists have average economic status and that they are rarely impoverished. Some, however, may have been “dishonored” through sexual activity or are unable to have children. Finally, some, as noted above, are motivated by revenge or grief from losing loved ones, including their husbands or children.35 One terrorism expert succinctly describes the motivations for women as the “four Rs”: revenge, redemption, relationship, and respect.36
We therefore have many different reasons offered for why women become involved with various terrorist movements. The common thread, however, is that all of their activity is conducted with some form of control by a terrorist group or at least by their recruiters and handlers. The female terrorist, whether voluntarily joining a movement or being manipulated or coerced into participating, is part of a group setting. Even if the time between being recruited or manipulated and then embarking upon a violent mission is just a few days, as has been the case for some female suicide bombers, there is still a sense of “belonging” to a group or movement. There will be interaction with others, perhaps in some cases only with the handlers, but, nevertheless, there is some human interaction, a characteristic that appears to be valued more by women than by men. This may offer us a clue as to why we haven't seen many female lone wolf terrorists. Like many things in life, the explanation has a lot to do with the social, emotional, and psychological differences between men and women.
WHY THERE ARE SO FEW FEMALE LONE WOLVES
While there is no consensus on how many lone wolf attacks have occurred throughout history, most observers agree that the total is quite small. Part of the problem in gaining a consensus stems from that old nemesis, the definitional dilemma. Disagreements abound about whether a lone wolf has to be an individual acting entirely alone or whether he or she can have some help from others, whether there has to be a political or religious motive, and so forth.37 Furthermore, some terrorism databases do not even include lone wolf attacks, since their definitions of terrorism require that the violent act be committed by two or more people. However, in one chronology that has been published, it was found that, between 1940 and 2007, there were only thirty-two cases of lone wolf terrorism in the United States and only forty-two between 1968 and 2007 for a sample of other countries around the world. In comparison, there were 5,646 terrorist incidents for the same sample of countries (including the United States) between 1968 and 2007. In terms of the lone wolf attacks, a woman committed just one of them.38
The lack of female lone wolf activity can be attributed to several factors. These include women being less likely than men to take risks, women placing higher value on social interactions and belonging to a group than men, the lower probability of women developing antisocial personality disorders than men, the lower likelihood that women will kill a stranger, and the tendency for women to kill more on impulse and emotion than on premeditation.
Women Are More Risk-Averse Than Men
Lone wolf activity is a risky endeavor. This is true for both the lone wolf animal and the lone wolf terrorist. For the animal, going it alone increases the chance of death. Since wolves travel in packs to ensure their survival in the wilderness, including the ability to bring down large prey and ward off predators, it is rare when one wolf breaks away to venture out on its own. This can occur when a subordinate wolf in the pecking order of the pack is not getting enough food to eat (because that wolf must wait until the higher-ranking wolves have eaten and may only get scraps or even nothing at all) or is facing increased aggression from the pack's dominant wolves. It can also occur when a wolf wants to find a mate and is prohibited from doing so within the pack. Once the subordinate wolf leaves the pack, however, more difficulties can ensue, including the dangers of trespassing into lands belonging to other packs, the need to search hundreds of miles to safely find food, and other hardships. Sometimes, lone wolves may find mates and form new packs, but more often, they are likely to die, since they do not have the support of the original pack. When a wolf decides to leave the pack, then, it is taking a lot of risks. Lone wolves are estimated to comprise less than 15 percent of the world's wolf population.39
Similarly, lone wolf terrorists have to make choices about taking risks before venturing out on their own to commit a terrorist attack. An individual has to have enough confidence in his or her ability to hatch up a scheme, acquire the necessary weapons or explosives, reach the target, commit the attack, escape from the scene, and so on. There might at times be one or two other people to provide minimal assistance, but for the most part, the lone wolf terrorist is on his or her own. It is not an activity for those who are risk-averse. While joining a terrorist group and embarking on group missions is also filled with risks (i.e., death, capture, etc.), there is still the security of knowing that one is part of a group endeavor and that there will be others around to provide different levels of support, whether that be logistical, financial, or emotional. Decisions on taking risks are left to the leaders of the group or cell and not to the individual terrorist.
Being part of a group also provides protection against the risk of self-doubt and guilt over the killing of innocent people. Alison Jamieson, an expert on the Italian Red Brigades, pointed out the difficulty some Red Brigade (RB) prisoners had once they lost faith in their group while in prison: “As long as he feels his actions are group actions, performed on the basis of collective decision, he can avoid the sensation of personal responsibility. But if the group identity falls away he is forced to assume his individuality, see himself as a murderer, and is left alone with his guilt. The immediate reaction of many of the RB prisoners was to see suicide as a realistic and even attractive way out.”40
To be a lone wolf terrorist, therefore, involves many different types of risks. And here is where gender differences become relevant. Research has found that women are less likely than men to take risks.41 Among some of the explanations offered are that women view risky behavior as resulting in unfavorable outcomes more so than do men, and they believe that they will become emotionally upset or harmed by the negative outcomes, should these occur.42 Another explanation proposed is that women are not as overconfident as men (where that could be a negative trait for men) and therefore not as likely to take risks.43 Still another reason cited is that as primary caregivers (in the role of mother), women avoid risks that could harm that situation.44 And yet another explanation links risk aversion to lower levels of testosterone in women.45
The relative lack of risk taking in women as compared to men appears, therefore, to be one reason for the scarcity of female lone wolf terrorists. We do not know whether, when contemplating a lone wolf mission, a man looks upon it as an adventure and throws caution to the wind while a woman is likely to be more cautious and calculate the numerous risks involved in going it alone. However, it would not be surprising if this were indeed the case.
Women Desire Interactions and Human Connections More So Than Do Men
Another important difference between the sexes that is relevant to understanding the dearth of female lone wolf terrorists is that women value human interactions and connections more so than do men. This is due to the different socialization processes that men and women experience throughout their lives. According to some experts, “Women are socialized to be interdependent and attuned to relationships, whereas men are socialized to be autonomous, independent, and self-reliant.”46 It has also been argued that “a women's primary motivation…is to build a sense of connection with others. Women develop a sense of self and self-worth when their actions arise out of, and lead back into, connections with others. Connection, not separation, is the guiding principle of growth for women.”47 Being and acting alone are not comfortable situations for women. As one observer noted, “Women perceive loneliness and social isolation as dangerous and threatening situations.”48
Since lone wolf terrorism is an isolated activity, it is not surprising that we haven't seen many women engage in this type of violence. It is not an attractive option for those individuals who desire human interactions, even if those individuals have an interest in committing a violent act. Lone wolf terrorists choose to be separated and isolated from others when planning an attack. They may sometimes see this as an advantage, since it could increase their chances for a successful mission (no communications with others that the authorities could intercept, no fellow terrorists who might be arrested and thereby enable the authorities to discover the plot, and so forth). But for women, who are programmed more than men to seek human connections, joining a terrorist group or cell would be the better route to take.
Paranoid Schizophrenia and Antisocial Personality Disorders Are Less Common in Women Than in Men
We saw in chapter 2 that one type of lone wolf is the idiosyncratic terrorist. These individuals, such as Theodore Kaczynski (the Unabomber) and Muharem Kurbegovic (the Alphabet Bomber), may have political or other agendas, but they also suffer from severe personality disorders that affect their behavior. In those two cases, each terrorist suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. The same was true for Jared Loughner, the young man who killed several people in a failed attempt to assassinate Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. We find, therefore, among some lone wolves, severe personality and psychological problems.49
With men displaying “higher rates of disorders linked to violence, such as paranoid schizophrenia and antisocial personality disorders,” than women, we have yet another reason for the scarcity of female lone wolves.50 Paranoid schizophrenia is just one of several different types of schizophrenia, which is a mental illness in which a person loses touch with reality.51 Furthermore, not only are men more likely than women to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, but when they do, the symptoms tend to be more severe.52 These symptoms include delusions; auditory hallucinations, such as hearing voices; anxiety; anger; emotional distance; and violence.53
The personality disorder most associated with violence, however, is antisocial personality disorder.54 This disorder, which, as noted above, is found more in men than in women, “is a type of chronic illness in which a person's ways of thinking, perceiving situations and relating to others are abnormal—and destructive.”55 Among the symptoms are a disregard for right and wrong, persistent lying or deceit, using charm or wit to manipulate others, aggressive or violent behavior, and lack of remorse about harming others.56 While there is no agreement among experts as to why men are more likely than women to have personality disorders that are linked to violence, some argue that the disorders are due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors.57
WOMEN ARE LESS LIKELY THAN MEN TO KILL A STRANGER
Another reason why women are virtually absent from the ranks of lone wolf terrorists is that they are less likely than men to kill a stranger when they engage in solo killings. The victims of female murders are usually people close to them, such as a child, parent, lover, or spouse.58 One of the characteristics of lone wolf terrorism (as well as terrorism perpetrated by groups or cells) is that it usually involves attacks on victims the perpetrator does not know. Whether it be a car bombing, a hijacking, or a mass shooting, it is unlikely that a perpetrator has had prior contact with the victim(s). There are exceptions, of course, such as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's shooting of fellow soldiers and others at Fort Hood, Texas, but even in that case, it was a mass shooting, with Hasan firing indiscriminately into a processing center for soldiers at the base. John Gilbert Graham blew up a plane with his mother on board, but in that same attack, he killed scores of other people he did not know. To be a lone wolf terrorist, then, one has to be able to murder complete strangers and not have a group to fall back upon for emotional or moral support. Women seem to have a harder time than men in doing that.
WHEN WOMEN DO KILL BY THEMSELVES, IT IS MORE EMOTIONAL AND IMPULSIVE THAN PREMEDITATED
As compared to men, when women kill, it is more often based on emotion and impulse. As one expert writes, “The major portion of violent crimes committed by women are characterized by great impulsiveness. Most murders perpetrated by women have a strong emotional motive, are unpremeditated, and are carried out while the woman is in a depressed, desperate or anxious state of mind.”59 Another expert found “instrumentally motivated violence to be more characteristic of men's motivations, whereas women are more apt to use violence for expressive purposes or as a way of releasing accumulated tension.”60 While some lone wolves may also release pent-up emotions and tensions by committing a violent act, their terrorism is nevertheless always premeditated. The tendency for women to kill based more on emotion and impulse than on premeditation is yet another reason why we haven't seen many female lone wolves.
There may be additional explanations for why men seem to dominate the world of lone wolf terrorism. Men, for example, are more likely than women to be familiar and comfortable with using explosives, assault rifles, and other weapons that are favored by many lone wolves. Boys are more likely than girls to grow up in environments in which they are taught how to use various weapons for hunting and other purposes. Shooting guns and playing with other weapons is considered more of a masculine activity, and it is something that many girls would not be interested in. We therefore have a larger pool of potential male lone wolf terrorists. Furthermore, around the world, there are more men than women who have had training in the use of different types of weapons in militaries. Lone wolves such as Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, and Nidal Malik Hasan all served at some point in the US Army, with Hasan still in the military when he committed his mass shooting attack at Fort Hood.
Another reason for the relative absence of women as lone wolf terrorists is that committing a terrorist attack by oneself can sometimes fulfill a need for a sense of power, dominance, and control over others, traits more associated with men than with women. While lone wolves have many different motivations for their attacks, ranging from political and religious to criminal and idiosyncratic, there might still be at work on some psychological level, whether conscious or subconscious, the desire to strike a blow all by oneself against a larger and more formidable enemy. By perpetrating a terrorist attack that causes fear in a wide audience and elicits reactions from governments and societies, lone wolves can satisfy that need.
BREAKING DOWN THE BARRIERS TO WOMEN BECOMING LONE WOLVES
Although the factors contributing to the scarcity of female lone wolves are numerous and varied, there are indications that some of these may be changing. First, we have seen a plethora of conflicts erupt around the world during the first decade of the twenty-first century that will fuel the flames of anger, hatred, and retaliation among many individuals for years to come. Memories of what happened to relatives, friends, and others in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere will linger long after the conflicts end. A parable about two Druze in Lebanon best captures the endless nature of terrorism. One Druze is walking down the road with grenades, machine guns, and daggers weighing him down from head to foot. He passes by a fellow Druze, who inquires why his friend is carrying so many weapons. The first Druze replies that he is going to the Abdullah house to kill all the people there because they killed his ancestors one hundred years ago. The second Druze looks at his friend in amazement and exclaims, “One hundred years ago! What's the rush?”61
Time is indeed on the side of those who seek revenge, including women. The “black widows” of Chechnya and the female suicide bombers in Iraq demonstrated how women who have lost loved ones during a war can be recruited by militant groups to commit terrorist attacks. It will not be surprising to see more women from these and other war-torn countries turn to terrorism, even without the support and training of an extremist group. We have new generations of angry young men and women coming of age around the world, and they have been socialized by their experiences to accept violence and terrorism as the norm and to not be afraid to take action on their own.
Another factor that might bring more women into the ranks of lone wolves is the global economic crisis, which will take a long time to resolve. This has led to major disruptions in people's lives, as they lose their homes, jobs, savings, and more. A sense of hopelessness consumes their everyday existence. Some of these unfortunate people may therefore turn to violence, including individual terrorist attacks, to address their grievances. This could include lone wolf attacks by men or women on banks, financial institutions, government officials, and others.
The most important factor, however, that is likely to lead to a breakdown in women's reluctance to engage in lone wolf terrorist activities will be the continual growth and impact of the Internet. Two recent examples may be harbingers of what is in store as more women gain confidence and knowledge through the Internet to embark on terrorist missions.
THE ONLINE ODYSSEY OF JIHAD JANE
It all started in June 2008, when a diminutive, forty-five-year-old, blue-eyed, American blonde, Colleen LaRose, posted a comment on YouTube under the username “JihadJane,” stating that she was “desperate to do something somehow to help” the suffering Muslim people.62 LaRose, a convert to Islam, had a troubled past, which included two failed marriages, convictions for passing a bad check and driving under the influence, and an attempted suicide. She posted many more YouTube videos over time, most of them training videos or violent scenes she had taken from jihadi websites.63 She had a MySpace webpage that contained photos of her wearing both a hijab, which is a headscarf worn by Muslim women, and a burqa, which covers the entire face and body.64 LaRose also used the alias “Fatima LaRose” in her numerous Internet postings and communications. She communicated via e-mail with people in Europe and South Asia about mutual desires to become martyrs for the Islamic cause.
One e-mail message she received in December 2008 was from a man in a South Asian country who stated his desire to wage jihad and become a martyr. LaRose responded with an e-mail indicating that she, too, wanted to become a martyr. Then, in January 2009, LaRose received an e-mail from a woman in a western European country, stating that she “tried twice [to become a martyr] but i wasnt [sic] successful…[but] i will…try until Allah will m[a]ke it easy for me.” LaRose responded with an e-mail that once again expressed her desire to become a martyr in the name of Allah.
The flurry of Internet activity continued in February 2009, when LaRose explained in an e-mail to the South Asian man why she could be valuable to the cause of Islamic extremism. She wrote that, because of her all-American physical appearance and US citizenship, she would be able to “blend in with many people,” which “may be a way to achieve what is in my heart.” LaRose was in communication with yet another man from a South Asian country in March. This man stated that he “can deal in bombs and explosives effecti[v]ely” and that LaRose “can get access to many places due to ur [sic] nationality.” That man also asked LaRose to “marry me to get me inside europe [sic].” LaRose agreed to marry the man and wrote that she would obtain residency status in a European country. LaRose then contacted the Swedish Embassy in March via e-mail, requesting information on how to acquire permanent residency status in Sweden. Less than two weeks later, that same man sent LaRose an e-mail telling her to travel to Sweden to kill Lars Vilks, a Swedish illustrator who had angered Muslims throughout the world in 2007, when he drew a derogatory caricature of the Prophet Muhammad. LaRose enthusiastically agreed, e-mailing back that “i will make this my goal till I achieve it or die trying.” The man then instructed LaRose to kill Vilks “in a way that the whole Kufar [non-believer] world get [sic] frightened.”
Having made contact through the Internet with other like-minded potential terrorists, LaRose then posted an online solicitation for funds on July 1. Meanwhile, the FBI, which by now had become aware of her attempt to aid and join Islamic extremist movements worldwide, interviewed LaRose on July 17. She lied to the agents, telling them that she had never solicited funds for terrorism, had not made online postings to a terrorist website, and had not used the online username “JihadJane.” Apparently not concerned or worried about the FBI interview, LaRose continued to try to recruit more people.
After being encouraged and emboldened through her Internet activity to wage jihad, LaRose took the next step and traveled to Europe on August 23. She had in her possession the stolen passport of her boyfriend, which she intended to give to a male member of her budding terrorist network. The purpose of her trip to Europe was to live and train with jihadists and to find and assassinate Vilks. She joined an online community while there that was hosted by Vilks. She also conducted online searches of Vilks and his location. On September 30, she sent an e-mail to the man she agreed to marry, stating that she considered it “an honour & great pleasure to die or kill for” him and pledging that “only death will stop me here that I am so close to the target!” However, she was arrested on October 16 after returning to the United States without completing her mission.
LaRose's arrest was not made public until March 2010, when several people, including those with whom LaRose had communicated over the Internet regarding the plot to kill Vilks, were arrested in Ireland. One of those detained was Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, another American woman who had converted to Islam, whom LaRose had recruited through e-mails for her planned terrorist activities. Paulin-Ramirez returned voluntarily to the United States in April 2010 and was arrested by federal agents in Philadelphia. She pled guilty in March 2011 to conspiring to provide support to terrorists and faced a fifteen-year prison sentence. She was scheduled to be sentenced in November 2012. LaRose, meanwhile, pled guilty in February 2011 to four federal charges, including conspiracy to murder a foreign target, conspiracy to support terrorists, and lying to the FBI. Her sentencing was scheduled for December 2012, where she faced the possibility of life in prison.65
We see in the case of Jihad Jane how a single individual, living in a Philadelphia suburb, can, through the magic of the Internet, build a terrorist network from scratch with online postings and communications. She demonstrated how an individual with no prior contacts with extremists anywhere could announce her intention to become a martyr for the Islamic militant cause and then just sit back and see what unfolds. It would be hard to imagine LaRose being able to reach around the globe for advice, support, funds, and comrades without the existence of e-mails, YouTube, MySpace, and other Internet wonders.
The LaRose case, however, also illustrates a potential Achilles’ heel for lone wolves who act as recklessly on the Internet as LaRose did. LaRose's flaunting of her desire to commit terrorist acts through her numerous e-mails and her advocacy of Islamic extremism through her many YouTube postings made her an easy target for identification by not only law enforcement agencies but also by others patrolling the Internet to uncover extremist websites and those advocating terrorist attacks. In fact, online monitoring groups such as My Pet Jawa and YouTube Smackdown, whose volunteers pressure Internet service providers to take down websites that are tied to extremist groups or contain material in support of Islamic extremism, claim to have known about LaRose long before law enforcement discovered her activities and to have alerted the authorities about her growing militancy.66 Therefore, one of the main advantages lone wolves have over organized terrorist groups and cells—namely, the ability to fly under the radar, since they usually work alone and do not leave a trail of communications that might be intercepted by authorities—can be compromised by those lone wolves who delve into the world of the Internet without taking precautions to cover their tracks.
BRITAIN'S FEMALE LONE WOLF: ROSHONARA CHOUDHRY
Whereas Colleen LaRose needed the emotional and logistical support of others to gain the confidence to plot a terrorist attack, all Roshonara Choudhry needed to gain the confidence to actually carry one out was a series of downloaded video sermons by the extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. The American-born al-Awlaki, who was the spiritual leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was killed in a US drone attack in Yemen in 2011. He could be considered the godfather of lone wolf terrorists, having influenced from afar a diverse array of extremists, including Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. But it was his influence over Choudhry, a bright, young British woman whom he never met, e-mailed, or talked to, that demonstrates how rapidly one can be drawn into the web of terrorism via the Internet.
Choudhry was the eldest daughter of a poor family struggling to make ends meet. Her father was an unemployed Bangladeshi tailor. Her mother was born in Britain. Both her parents were living off benefits from the state and whatever income the children could raise through work. Choudhry was determined to make her life better than her parents’, attending the prestigious King's College in London, where she studied English and communications and attained high grades. She also volunteered at an Islamic school. However, she inexplicably dropped out of college toward the end of her final year, despite the fact that she was expected to achieve a first-class degree, which is the highest level in the British university system.67
Unbeknownst to anybody, the model student began downloading the sermons of al-Awlaki in November 2009. She had given no prior indication of being sympathetic to those who espoused Islamic extremist views. But that is exactly what al-Awlaki did in his sermons. He preached “the need for violent action to combat the atrocities of the West against Muslims around the world, and urged followers to do what they could, when they could, no matter how small.”68 Choudhry downloaded and listened to more than one hundred sermons by al-Awlaki between November 2009 and May 2010. She would later tell police that she “became interested in Anwar al-Awlaki's lectures because he explains things really comprehensively and in an interesting way so I thought I could learn a lot from him and I was surprised at how little I knew about my religion so that motivated me to learn more.”69
Choudhry's praise of al-Awlaki was similar to how Italian anarchists in the United States described the influence of another charismatic leader, Luigi Galleani, who, after coming to America in the early 1900s, became a lightning rod for the anarchist movement. His voluminous writings and spellbinding speeches quickly won him a loyal following. Those who heard him speak described him as a “forceful orator,” “most effective debater,” and the “soul of the movement.” One anarchist recalled that “you hung on every word when he spoke,” while another said that “he spoke directly to my heart.” Other testimonials said that “he expressed what I wanted to say but couldn't because I didn't have the words” and that “you heard Galleani speak and you were ready to shoot the first policeman you saw.”70 The same could be said for al-Awlaki, who was able to do all of this over the Internet.
Choudhry didn't shoot a policeman. Instead, she targeted Stephen Timms, a member of parliament (MP) who supported the war in Iraq. She found a website that described his voting record and how he was among the most consistent supporters of the war. “That made me feel angry,” Choudhry told police, “because the whole Iraq war is just based on lies and he just voted strongly for everything as though he had no mercy.” She added, “I just felt like if he could treat the Iraqi people so mercilessly, then why should I show him any mercy?”71
Having decided to assassinate Timms, Choudhry purchased two knives and made an appointment to visit with him at one of his constituency meetings on May 14, 2010. Prior to the meeting, she paid off her student loan, relieving her parents of liability for the debt. After walking into Timms's office, she stated that she had to see the MP and not one of his assistants. Even though the security guard noticed that she seemed anxious, she was still allowed to wait for Timms. When Timms came out to greet her, he was surprised at what he saw. Choudhry, who was dressed in black and wearing traditional Muslim clothing, walked up to him as though wanting to shake his hand. He thought that was strange, since Muslim women dressed the way Choudhry was would not normally take the initiative to shake a man's hand. Choudhry then pulled a knife from her bag and stabbed him twice in the stomach. The security guard and one of Timms's assistants immediately restrained her until police arrived.72
Timms recovered from his wounds, and Choudhry was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of fifteen years. Like most religious extremists, Choudhry showed no remorse and simply smiled when the sentence was announced. Timms expressed sympathy for the young woman, stating, “I think she wanted to be a teacher. Throwing all of that away because of what she saw on the web. I think that's tragic.”73 Choudhry thought it was noble: “I feel like I've ruined the rest of my life,” she told police. “I feel like it's worth it because millions of Iraqis are suffering and I should do what I can to help them and not just be inactive and do nothing when they suffer.”74
What baffled authorities was how Choudhry could fly so low under the radar. After her arrest, they searched her computers for contacts with Islamic extremists but found none. She had no connection to any Islamist group and had not attended any meetings.75 She did not go to any mosque but instead prayed at home. One of the detectives questioning her could not believe she acted totally alone. “Forgive me,” he said. “I just find it a little bit strange that you're doing all this on your own and not speaking to anyone else about [it].” Choudhry explained why she didn't talk to anybody about her militancy: “Because nobody would understand. And anyway, I didn't wanna tell anyone because I know that if anybody else knew, they'd get in trouble ’cos then they would be like implicated in whatever I do, so I kept it a secret.”76
One can only imagine the discipline required for a young woman to keep to herself her journey from a diligent, top-of-her class student at a prestigious university to a fervent believer in jihad with the need to kill a politician based on his voting record in Parliament. Her suddenly dropping out of college, however, could have been a warning sign that something was amiss, similar to the practice of many suicide bombers who cut all ties with their families and friends weeks before they commit their attacks. But Choudhry's attack caught everyone by surprise. Not surprising, though, was the reaction of the British government, which called for websites hosting al Qaeda videos to be taken down. Security Minister Baroness Neville-Jones stated that the websites would be banned in Britain. “They incite cold-blooded murder,” she said. “And as such are surely contrary to the public good.”77
The Internet, however, is an irreversible fact of life in the twenty-first century, and for every militant site that is taken down, another one appears somewhere else in cyberspace, able to elude the authorities and appeal to impressionable and inquisitive people around the world. The void created by the killing of influential terrorists such as Anwar al-Awlaki and Osama bin Laden is quickly filled by others ready and willing to fan the flames of hatred and intolerance.
The Internet is also doing its part to convince some women that the risks of lone wolf terrorist activity are worth taking. In addition to offering valuable information on potential targets, weapons, tactics, and causes, it is also providing them with human interaction. Whether it is in the case of LaRose, who felt connected with others around the world through e-mails and other online activity, or in the case of Choudhry, who felt inspired by a voice and face that was always just one click away on her computer, nobody has to feel alone anymore when planning and implementing a lone wolf terrorist attack. The experiences of LaRose and Choudhry may just be the tip of the iceberg of more women joining the ranks of the lone wolves.