Sisters in jihad
From Brian Todd
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A veiled shadow in a doorway of Beslan School Number One; delicate, slumped bodies in Moscow theater seats; the soft, youthful face in a suicide bomber's farewell video -- These images are gripping and contradictory.
"We still have difficulty imagining women as killers rather than as mothers," explains Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert with the RAND Corp.
Start imagining it, the experts tell us, because it's happening more and more.
Female terrorists participated in the hostage standoff this month at a school in southern Russia, where large numbers of children were among the more than 300 dead; in a suicide-bomb attack at a Moscow subway days earlier; in the near-simultaneous bombings of two planes in Russia last month; and in the standoff at a Moscow theater in October, 2002, that left 170 people dead.
Authorities believe women played central roles in all those incidents.
In Russia, the profile seems more consistent. These women are all believed to be Chechen -- some of them, experts say, are so-called "Black Widows."
"They are widows of men who fought in the war and were killed but most of them have had their whole families exterminated by the Russian Army in this conflict," says Svante Cornell of Johns Hopkins University.
The desperation that drives female terrorists did not begin in Russia, nor is it confined there.
In 2002, women were the attackers in a devastating string of suicide bombings in the West Bank and Gaza.
In 1991, a female bomber from Sri Lanka's Tamil Rebels got close enough to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. 'Close enough' is a key phrase.
For terrorist groups, women possess important tactical advantages.
"One, it's effective because it's surprising. It gets people's sense of, 'This is abnormal. Women don't do things like this.' It's also effective because it's difficult to protect against. Security forces aren't used to looking at women, especially young women and girls, as potentially the danger," says RAND Corp. defense and international policy analyst Olga Oliker.
Accounts from survivors and security officials show that in some terrorist incidents, women have been noticeably more ruthless than their male comrades.
With recruiting tools like one on-line magazine, which calls for women to participate in jihad, experts say we can expect to see more of the feminine face of terror.
