NEWSWEEK: DRESSED TO KILL IN IRAQ: PROFILE OF FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBERS

Dressed to Kill
Why the number of female suicide bombers is rising in Iraq.

Farhana Ali
Special Guest Columnist
Updated: 12:16 PM ET Jul 30, 2008
http://www.newsweek.com/id/149531

Muslim female suicide bombers are on the rise. Even before women attackers claimed dozens of lives in Monday's coordinated attacks on Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad and political protesters in Kirkuk, women had carried out more than 20 missions in Iraq this year—the most violent one yet for the women of Al Qaeda. But for those of us who have studied the phenomenon, the assaults should not come as a surprise.

For almost 10 years, we have warned that women would start playing a more aggressive role in groups like Al Qaeda. As more men are captured or killed by security forces worldwide, it was inevitable that terror groups would consider other options to keep their cause alive.

Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the Al Qaeda in Iraq leader notorious for his videotaped beheading of a foreign captive, may have been one of the first to recruit women, but his death in 2006 hardly brought the drive to an end.

From 2003 to 2006, the rate of female suicide bombers in Iraq was relatively low—five attacks in three years. But in 2007, the increase was exponential. And by the end of this year, there will likely be 50 or more attacks conducted by women mujahidaat in Iraq.

Female fighters are hardly new; Muslim women have proved adept and astute warriors since the birth of Islam in seventh-century Arabia. That, however, fails to answer the question about why modern women—the givers of life—are willing to commit suicide for their cause. Many non-Muslims believe that men choose this course for religious reasons, in the hope that 72 virginal houris will greet them as martyrs in paradise.

Women, however, do not choose suicide for reasons of faith or feminism. Too few Western scholars acknowledge that women conduct acts of violence to protect their men, country and future generations.

While much is unknown about suicidal mujahidaat, there is no doubt that many choose this course to avenge the loss of male family members—especially their sons. A simpler argument revolves around the word "protest."

Women in Iraq today are either using violence to protest the loss of their society or the loss of their country to an occupation they don't believe in. Recall that the first two female bombers in March 2003, who detonated themselves days after U.S. forces entered Baghdad, declared on television that their primary motive was to protect Iraq from a foreign invader.

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