Word: womening
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...photograph has transformed the way many Russians look at terrorism. It shows one of the two women who allegedly bombed the Moscow subway: a cherubic teenager smirking as she waves a pistol in the air. The image of the stereotypical jihadi - the masked or bearded zealot holding a Kalashnikov or wearing an explosive vest - suddenly morphed into a more ambivalent yet still terrifying menace...
Experts say this was exactly the aim of the groups that supposedly recruited Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova, who, along with Maryam Sharipova, attacked two Metro stations in Moscow. Around the world, organizations like al-Qaeda are realizing that women can be far more effective than men at penetrating security checkpoints, making their attacks deeper and more lethal. Almost as important, a female face makes it harder to dismiss radical Islamism as simply evil. "We all have mothers. We all tend to idealize women as nonviolent," says Anne Speckhard, who chairs a NATO expert group on the psychological and social aspects of terrorism...
...means a simple act of revenge, say Speckhard and other experts, insisting it is wrong to imagine the Black Widows as loyal widows seeking justice. (Sharipova's husband is believed to still be alive.) The women are in reality the products of a sophisticated process of indoctrination with deep roots in the North Caucasus, where a less conservative form of Islam has meant insurgents have few qualms about using women in their attacks. "The women who take part in terrorism do it not out of their own desire or willingness but because they are manipulated. They are given no other...
...Women in such circumstances, says Speckhard, tend to be recruited because they are in search of "psychological first aid." Working most often over the Internet, the recruiters play the role of a father to women left vulnerable by abuse or other trauma. "To an extent it does help them. It's like a drug. It's short-lived. It gives you relief, but it's not a solution. And just like a drug addiction, it often ends tragically," says Speckhard, who has interviewed more than 300 perpetrators of terrorism, their victims and their loved ones for her book Talking...
...ease of finding such women over the Internet, and their usefulness to terrorist groups, suggest that the role of women in jihadist movements will continue to grow. Even ultraconservative groups like al-Qaeda, which had long avoided recruiting women, have come around to the tactic, says Mia Bloom, author of Bombshell: Women and Terror. In Russia the problem is particularly acute, as more than 50% of the country's suicide attacks have been committed by women, compared with about 30% globally. Far more than those of male bombers, their attacks also speed the flow of new recruits and money into...