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Iraqi terrorist groups do, however, target underage women who are living on the streets and have no men to protect them. Most of the female bombers have no religious background whatsoever and can be manipulated into thinking that such operations are Allah’s will and are justified in the Qur’an and Hadith. At other times, the women are simply tricked. They are told that the packages they are transporting contain contraband, and then their minders detonate the IEDs by remote control before the duped women even know they have “volunteered” for a mission.
Among the more blatant forms of coercion brought to bear on susceptible women are drugging, kidnapping, and sexual assault. In October 2008, fifteen-year-old Raniya Ibrahim Mutlaq (Mutleg)55 was caught before she could detonate her improvised explosive device outside a school in Baquba. Iraqi police officers spotted red wires dangling from beneath her clothing and deduced that she was carrying a bomb. When the officers approached her, Raniya did not resist, but rather acted as if she was in a drug-induced trance. One officer handcuffed her to a fence’s metal railings and slowly began to remove the outer garments of her outfit. While he carefully defused the bomb wrapped around her waist, Raniya seemed to be in a daze. The police officer was able to remove the IED without injuring her or causing any casualties. (For his coolness under pressure, he received five million Iraqi dinars—around $4,250—for a job well done.)
During her initial interrogation, Raniya denied knowing that she was wearing an explosive vest, even though it weighed nearly thirty pounds. She claimed to have been a victim of circumstance. Raniya was from a poor family. She grew up in a mud hut in a small village near Abu Seida, eighty kilometers northeast of Baghdad. Although as a little girl she fantasized about someday becoming a doctor, poverty and the war meant that she would never realize her dreams. Raniya’s father and brother were killed by sectarian violence after the American invasion in 2003. Instead of allowing her to stay in school, her family forced her to marry Muhammed Hassan al Dulaimi, a member of Al Qaeda in Iraq, when she was fourteen. Dulaimi went on the run, and Raniya felt all alone in the world. Her mother and aunt were the local recruiters for Al Qaeda, and both were prepared to sacrifice her for the cause. But according to Raniya, it was actually her husband’s cousins who got her involved: they gave her some spiked juice to drink that made her feel dizzy and submissive. The cousins fastened the suicide belt around her waist and directed her to the marketplace to explode. Interrogators could not determine whether Raniya had been a willing participant or if she had been coerced. The Diyala juvenile court judge said she was young and naïve and took into consideration the fact that she had not resisted arrest. He sentenced her to seven and a half years in jail.
Raniya’s capture provided valuable insight into the nature of Iraqi suicide bomber cells. Whether Raniya was drugged and coerced or willingly volunteered, after her case Iraqi officials posted warnings throughout Diyala province that Al Qaeda was kidnapping girls to use as suicide bombers.56 Baquba police were able to dismantle and capture three of the terrorist cells that were recruiting female bombers and subsequently publicized the insidious practices used by Al Qaeda in its recruitment of women.
Several new reports detailing incidents of coercion have emerged since 2008, as the number of female suicide bombers in Iraq increased by 400 percent. A teacher named Sumaya was forced to undergo training and carry an explosive belt beneath her clothes against her will. Sumaya was allegedly “volunteered” by her husband, Amjad al Dulaymi, a former army officer in Saddam’s Republican Guard who joined Al Qaeda in Iraq. She later claimed that Amjad, under financial pressure and with no opportunity for work, had no choice but to join the terrorist organization. He played many roles in the insurgency, planting explosives, transporting small rockets, and coordinating attacks against army and police convoys. After a year of working with AQI, his emir requested that he gather all the mujahideen’s women and task them with operational and support activities. Amjad dutifully brought in his wife, whom he assumed would be tasked with information-gathering or assisting the jihadi fighters. Instead, and without his consent, Sumaya was selected to be a suicide bomber. According to Sumaya, when the AQI emir came to see her, she thought that he wanted to benefit from her work as a teacher to collect information on the area and its people. She was surprised to be chosen for a suicide attack. Sumaya protested and tried to resist, saying that as the mother of three young children she had responsibilities to her family. She certainly did not want to be a martyr!
The emir ignored her. He praised Allah and congratulated Amjad for having a wife who was a future martyr. The emir offered Amjad $5,000 compensation for his loss and to help him raise the children. However, Amjad’s conscience troubled him. He recalled the years he had spent in the army away from his family and the sacrifices Sumaya had made to raise their children alone. The emir told him to recite the Qur’an and to prepare his wife for the operation. Just a few hours later, Amjad fled with his wife and family, leaving the Al Ghazaliyah area where he had lived for more than twenty years.57 They moved quickly, fearing the consequences if their escape was discovered before they reached a safe haven. The family headed to Sadr City in Baghdad, beyond the reach of Amjad’s former Al Qaeda comrades, and settled in a Shi’a neighborhood protected by their Shi’a friends.58
Not all Iraqi husbands make the same choice in favor of their wives. In March 2008 authorities arrested a male recruiter who was going to use his wife for a suicide attack. At the beginning of the war in Iraq, many families married off their daughters to local Al Qaeda leaders while the girls were still quite young. At the time, Al Qaeda cadres were fairly popular, as the group posed the sole challenge to American domination of the country. The early marriages were partly a precautionary measure, because women were being routinely sexually victimized at the time and girls who had been attacked sexually were considered damaged goods. One flaw in this strategy was that if a girl’s husband died or was captured, the girl was obliged to marry his successor in the organization.59 Another flaw was that some Al Qaeda leaders allegedly were recruiting their wives to carry out suicide operations. There are numerous reports that the women were manipulated in other ways. Some male militants, for example, reportedly married a woman and then allowed her to be raped and dishonored, making it easier to groom her as a bomber.
The idea that women who are sexually abused can be funneled into terrorist organizations is one thing. Another, more common phenomenon is the abuse perpetrated by soldiers of the other side. Chechen girls raped by Russian soldiers at checkpoints or Tamil women sexually abused by Sinhalese soldiers in Sri Lanka have been a recurring image of those conflicts. The formerly victimized women reinvent themselves as terrorists and redeem their honor by killing as many of the enemy’s soldiers as possible.
While there has been a handful of high-profile cases of Iraqi women being raped by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib, and the case of Abir al Janabi, a fourteen-year-old girl who was raped and killed by Americans, there have been surprisingly few cases of rape reported in the American or foreign media (and fewer military courts martial) compared to previous foreign wars. This is partly an issue of access. American soldiers simply do not encounter many Iraqi women on a daily basis. They are also inhibited by the powerful societal taboo against looking at, let alone talking with, local women. And the availability of American servicewomen and female contractors—who have been increasingly victimized during their tours of duty—has diverted the soldiers’ attention away from the indigenous population as well. In effect, the level of violence perpetrated by the soldiers against women is about the same as in other foreign wars, but the targets have switched from foreign to domestic.60
So instead of being abused by foreign soldiers, increasing numbers of Iraqi women have been raped by members of their own community in order to create squads of suicide bombers.61 Initially allegations to this effect by the Iraqi government were assumed to be propaganda, intended to undermine the popularity of the insurgent Sunni organizations. Then,
in February 2009, a female recruiter named Samira Ahmed Jassim was arrested for arranging the rape of eighty girls over a period of two years and turning them into suicide bombers for Ansar Al Sunnah, an insurgent group in Diyala linked to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia (one of the aliases for AQI). Of the eighty girls victimized, twenty-eight had successfully carried out operations by the time Jassim was arrested by the Iraqi police. Her confession offers some insight into the growing wave of suicide attacks by women in the past two years. She confirmed what several military and intelligence officials have contended: that the Iraqi insurgents prey on women who are in dire social and economic situations and who are often suffering from emotional or psychological problems or abuse.62
Samira Jassim worked as a recruiter for Shakir Hamid Malik, one of the lower-echelon leaders of Ansar Al Sunnah. She admitted that she routinely used rape to recruit female suicide bombers. She convinced the shamed victims that the only way to redeem themselves was through suicide attacks. According to Jassim, she identified vulnerable women and instructed men to attack them. Jassim would then approach the women as a friend and confidant. She would advise them how best to avoid bringing on their families the shame that could trigger the full wrath of society. After some cajoling, she told them that the only solution was to become a martyr or shahida. She then escorted them to a farm in Diyala province for bomber training and served as their minder, accompanying them to their final target.
Samira Jassim recounted the fate of one of her victims, Umm Huda. After she had been raped, Jassim said, Huda could barely make eye contact. She would not answer Jassim’s questions, but instead stared straight ahead or looked at her feet while mumbling verses from the Qur’an.63 Over time, Jassim was able to wear her down and convince her to become a bomber. Within weeks, dressed in a black abaya, Umm Huda walked into the crowd at the main gate of the Muqdadiyah police station and detonated her explosive belt in a crowd of about two hundred police recruits.64 Sixteen people died and thirty-three others were wounded in the blast. The newspapers did not report Umm Huda’s name until Jassim was arrested and authorities began tracking down and identifying her string of victimized female bombers.
Another would-be bomber, Amal, a former elementary school teacher, needed considerably more convincing to become a suicide bomber after her rape. According to Jassim, Amal had been living in fairly difficult conditions. Her husband and his family were having problems with her brothers and she found herself stuck between them. Amal was in bad psychological shape and Jassim had to meet with her several times to gain her confidence. Over a period of more than two weeks, Jassim convinced her that she had no choice. Amal eventually attacked the Sunni Awakening council in Diyala and killed fifteen people in December 2007.
On jihadi websites, like that of the Islamic Front for Iraqi Resistance (JAMI), Al Qaeda has denied all allegations that it employs coercion to recruit female bombers. The group says that their women, like their men and youths, are committed to resisting the occupation. They claim that Al Qaeda would never be involved in violence against the innocent Iraqi people.65 Yet according to a memo from President Nuri al Maliki’s office, the number of female bombers used to perpetrate violence against Iraqi civilians has increased dramatically. The success rate for female bombers varies. Several have changed their mind at the very last minute. As many as 40 percent of suicide operations were aborted and the female bombers killed before reaching their target. Often the female bomber detonates, but kills no one other than herself. However, the women bombers in Diyala are not always in control of their own suicide belts and men occasionally detonate them remotely.66 In some cases, belts containing explosive materials have been given to women who believe that they are acting only as couriers, taking the belts from one place to another in return for a large sum of money. The belts are detonated by remote control. The women never know that they have “volunteered” to be martyrs.
It is wrong to assume that all women have been tricked. Some women are in fact participating in this violence willingly. The Dhat al Nitaqayn Martyrdom Brigade67 is the newest commando unit composed exclusively of women and led by a radical woman, Umm Salamah. According to Al Qaeda in Iraq, it is the equivalent of one thousand fighting companies.68 The women’s brigade is linked to two important insurgent leaders, Shaykh Abu Hamza al Muhajir, current emir of AQI, and Abu Umar al Baghdadi of the Iraq Islamic State group. The brigade has announced plans to create a special Abir al Janabi unit named after the fourteen-year-old Iraqi rape victim.
While Al Qaeda in Iraq proudly recognizes its female bombers (although not always by name), Ayman Al Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, claims that there is no place for women in the global jihad. Islamist hard-liners have banned women from participating in jihad against the West. Al Zawahiri emphatically insists there are no women whatsoever in Al Qaeda’s ranks. In Al Qaeda and Taliban military camps in Afghanistan, women are separated from their husbands and asked to care for their children while the men dedicate their lives to jihad. The women’s role is to support their men, helping them endure the hardships associated with frequent moves, difficult terrain, and harsh living conditions. Osama bin Laden’s first wife had severe difficulty acclimatizing to a Spartan existence in Afghanistan and eventually left him, taking the children with her.69 Not every jihadi wife can stand by her man while he’s on the run.
In an article entitled “This Is How Women Should Be,” posted online by the Islamic Army in Iraq, Al Zawahiri said that a Muslim woman should “be ready for any service the mujahideen need from her,” but advises against traveling to a war front like Afghanistan without a male guardian. Al Zawahiri acknowledges that women have played a role in other areas of the Dar al Harb (House of War) in the global jihad. In Algeria, he admitted, the Al Qaeda in the Maghreb makes use of women in bombing campaigns. But the women are largely responsible for support: the provision of medicine, food, and clothes. To a woman who asked Al Zawahiri whether she should participate in jihad in the Maghreb, he responded that while jihad is a universal obligation for both men and women, if by joining the jihad she has to abandon her children, she should not do it.
For some jihadi women, Al Zawahiri’s answer is a disappointment because they feel that they can make an important contribution to the cause. More to the point, his comments do not reflect the reality of women’s involvement in Iraq or in other conflicts in which they have played vital roles. Online, some women have pleaded for the right to get involved. “How many times have I wished I were a man … When Sheikh Ayman Al Zawahiri said there are no women in Al Qaeda, he saddened and hurt me,” wrote one woman who claimed to have listened to the speech ten times. “I felt that my heart was about to explode in my chest … I am powerless.”70
In December 2009, Ayman Al Zawahiri’s wife, Umayma Hasan, released a letter identifying three kinds of Muslim women: female jihadis, sisters in Islam who have been imprisoned, and the rest. In the letter she calls on the female jihadis to remain steadfast in the path of jihad as “victory is near!” God, she assures them, is not about to forsake them, and they shall either be rewarded with victory or martyrdom, of which, she writes, “each is sweeter than the other.” Like many of the emerging leaders of Al Qaeda, she too argues that “jihad is an individual duty incumbent upon every Muslim man and woman.” She does acknowledge that the path of fighting is not easy for women because they are required to have a male companion or mahram to chaperone them at all times. But she lauds the many sisters who have carried out martyrdom operations in Palestine, Iraq, and Chechnya, and “caused the enemy high costs and caused the enemy a big defeat. We ask from Allah to accept them and connect us with them with goodness.” She reminds her readers of the female Companions who fought alongside the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) and showed more courage than many men at the time. She explains that there are many other ways women can fulfill their obligations: “Put yourselves in the service of the jihadis, carry out what they ask, whether in supporting them financially, serving their [practical] needs, s
upplying them with information, opinions, partaking in fighting or even [volunteering to carry out] a martyrdom operation.” For the rest of the Muslim world, she urges women to observe Islamic law, wear the veil, and bring up their children to love jihad. For Umayma Hasan, women are critical for the jihad’s success.71
In one of his addresses to the Islamic community of believers, bin Laden commented that women’s role is just as valuable as that of men, for “you have spurred on and exhorted [men to join jihad], and you have raised all the men who fought in Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Chechnya, and you are the ones who produced the squadron of heroic [men who carried out] the raids in New York and Washington.”72 This is a far cry from Muhammed Atta’s last-will-and-testament videotape recorded on January 18, 2000, in which he proclaimed that no women should attend his funeral or touch his body after death.73
The underlying fear of women’s sexuality has driven much of Salafist ideology. Al Zawahiri’s comments demonstrate that Al Qaeda is required to walk a fine line in its public-relations approach to, on the one hand, the modern Arab world and, on the other hand, its more conservative constituency. Dozens of the Internet responses to Ayman Al Zawahiri’s earlier statement were signed by men who agreed that women should stick to supporting men and raising children.
Dr. Fadl, former mentor of Al Zawahiri, remarked in his book Al ‘Umda that women can only partake in military activities to defend themselves against an enemy who has invaded Muslim territory and raided their homes. For this reason, women can receive basic training so that they can be prepared to repel their attackers.74 The ideologues believe that the success of jihad depends on the support of women, but not as warriors.75