Bombshell Read online

  5 Reuters, “Suicide Bomber Spotlights Russia’s Islamist Battle,” May 18, 2010, www.politicalscandalnews.com/article/Suicide%20bomber%20spotlights%20Russia%27s%20Islamist%20battle/?k=j83s12y12h94s27k02

  6 www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/04/06/moscow.subway.bombings/index.html

  7 http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/04/201045142533794297.html

  8 www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/europe/07moscow.html

  9 Several months later, a reporter from The Guardian newspaper interviewed the family; Luke Harding, “Dagestan: My Daughter the Terrorist,” The Guardian, June 19, 2010, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/19/dagestan-suicide-bombers-terrorism-russia

  10 www.rttnews.com/Content/GeneralNews.aspx?Id=1304458&SM=1

  11 www.rttnews.com/Content/GeneralNews.aspx?Id=1304458&SM=1; www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7125906.ece

  1 A Brief History of Terror and the Logic of Oppression

  1 Cited in Deeana J. Resse, “The Trouble between us: an uneasy history of white and black women in the feminist movement.” Women’s History Review, Vol. 18, issue 3, July 2009, p.513.

  2 “Ulrike Meinhof calls for a move from protest to resistance,” http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=895&language=english.

  3 Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror, New York: Columbia University Press, 2005, chapter 1.

  4 Philip K. Hitti, “The Assassins,” in George Andrews and Simon Vinkenoog (eds.), The Book of Grass: An Anthology on Indian Hemp, London: Peter Owen Press, 1967, writes that the whole mysterious legend of the Assassins was most fancifully presented by Marco Polo, who passed through Persia in 1273. For the full text see Charles E. Nowell, “The Old Man of the Mountain,” Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies, vol. 22, no. 4, October 1947, pp. 497 passim.

  5 Bernard Lewis, The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987, p. 127.

  6 Mako Sasaki, “Who Became Kamikaze Pilots, and How Did They Feel towards Their Suicide Mission?” Quoted by Roman Kupchinsky, in “Smart Bombs with Souls,” in Organized Crime and Terrorism Watch 3, no. 13, April 17, 2003.

  7 Ibid, p. 1.

  8 Scott Atran, “Genesis and Future of Suicide Terrorism,” Interdisciplines, 2003, www.interdisciplines.org/terrorism/papers/1/6 see also Science, March 7, 2003, vol. 299, no. 5612, pp. 1534–39.

  9 Peter Hill, “Kamikaze: Pacific War, 1943–45,” Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, unpublished manuscript, pp. 2–4.

  10 Maximilien Robespierre, “Principes de morale politique,” speech to French National Convention, February 5, 1794, http://membres.lycos.fr/discours/1794.htm

  11 U.S. Department of State, National Counter Terrorism Center, www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2006/82739.htm

  12 Richard B. Jensen, “The United States, International Policing of the War against Anarchist Terrorism,” Terrorism and Political Violence 13, 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 15–46.

  13 Bruce Watson, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind, New York: Viking Press, 2007, p. 77.

  14 Beverly Gage, The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in Its First Age of Terror, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

  15 David Rapoport, “Four Waves of Rebel Terror and September 11,” Anthropoetics 8, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2002), www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0801/terror.htm#b3

  16 Ibid.

  17 www.almaqdese.net/r1?i=3552&x=x483iubf. See also Nelly Lahoud, The Jihadis Path to Self Destruction, New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.

  18 Bloom, Dying to Kill, op. cit.

  19 Yoni Fighel, “Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Female Suicide Bombers,” October 6, 2003, http://212.150.54.123/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=499 (accessed July 14, 2008)

  20 Sophie Claudet, “More Palestinian Women Suicide Bombers Could Be on the Way: Analysts,” Middle East Times, March 1, 2002.

  21 Robert Baer, The Cult of the Suicide bomber. Documentary Film, New York: Disinformation Studios, 2005.

  22 Scott Atran argues that as a result of Akras’s martyrdom, Saudi Arabia sent 100 million dollars to fund the Al ‘Aqsa Intifada.

  23 Graham Usher, “At 18, Bomber Became Martyr and Murderer,” The Guardian, March 30, 2002, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/mar/30/israel3

  24 Cited by Bloom, Dying to Kill, op. cit., pp. 3–4

  25 Shanthikumar Hettiarachchi, “Tamil Tiger Martyrdon in Sri Lanka: Faith in Suicide for Nationhood?” Politics and Religion, Vol. 2, www.politicsandreligionjournal.com/images/pdf_files/srpski/godina1_broj2/

  Shanthikumar_Hettiarachchi.pdf.

  26 Paul Gill, Marketing Martyrdom: The Political Psychology of Suicide Bombings, Forthcoming, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

  27 Alisa Stack O’Connor, “Picked Last: Women and Terrorism,” JFQ, issue 44, 2007, NDU Press, p. 95.

  28 Robin Kirk, Untold Terror: Violence Against Women in Peru’s Armed Conflict, New York: Human Rights Watch, 2002; Ammu Joseph, Terror and Counter Terror: Women Speak Out, London: Zed Books, 2003; Betsy Reed, Nothing Sacred: Women Respond to Religious Fundamentalism and Terror, New York, NY: Nation Books, 2002; Anne Cubilie, Women Witnessing Terror: Testimony and the Cultural Politics of Human Rights, New York: Fordham University Press, 2005.

  29 Interviews with former bombers, Belfast, August 2009.

  30 Eileen McDonald, Shoot the Women First, New York: Random House, 1992.

  2 The Black Widow Bombers

  1 Gunmen Release Chilling Video, CNN http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/10/24/moscow.siege.video/

  2 Robert Mackey, “Chechen Rebel Leaders Speaks via Youtube,” April 1, 2010, http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/chechen-rebel-leader-speaks-via-youtube/

  3 Margaret Ziolkowski, Alien Visions: The Chechens and the Navahos in Russian and American Literature, Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2005, p. 41.

  4 Kerim Fenari, “The Jihad of Imam Shamyl,” www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/misc/shamyl.htm

  5 Moshe Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan, London: Routledge, 2003.

  6 Bülent Gökay, “Russia and Chechnia: A Long History of Conflict, Resistance and Oppression,” Alternatives, vol. 3, no. 2 (Summer 2004).

  7 Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism 1917–1923, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997, p. 95.

  8 Chechnya: A Time Trail, www.time.com/time/europe/chechnyatrail/chechnyatrail.html

  9 Clare Doyle, “The Chechen Russian Conflict: Today and Yesterday,” Socialism Today, www.socialismtoday.org/87/tolstoy.html.

  10 1 AD–1721, A Mountain of Languages, January 1, 2001, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1399566/1-AD-1721-A-mountain-oflanguages.html.

  11 Kerim Fenari, “The Jihad of Imam Shamyl,” www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/misc/shamyl.htm

  12 Jeremy Putley, “Crime Without Punishment: Russian Policy in Chechnya,” Open Democracy News Analysis (www.opendemocracy.net), July 27, 2003 www.opendemocracy.net/node/1388/pdf (p. 2)

  13 Ibid.

  14 Amnesty International, Chechnya—A Report to the Council of Europe, AI Index: EUR 46/001/2001, http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR460012001?open&of=ENG-366

  15 BBC, “Britons killed ‘by Bin Laden Ally,’” November 18, 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1663278.stm

  16 Reports vary about the number of people inside. The theater had sold 711 tickets that night, and members of the cast and crew were also taken hostage, but an exact figure does not exist. Russian sources cite 912 hostages but as many as 979 have been reported. Russian sources are extremely unreliable on many of the details concerning the events at the theater.

  17 Adam Dolnik and Keith M. Fitzgerald, Negotiating Hostage Crises with the New Terrorists, Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2007, p. 61.

  18 Oleg Petrovsky, “The Dagestan Route for Barayev’s Terrorists,” Moscow, www.ulto.ru (December 11, 2002)

  19 One person
died in the blast. It was initially assumed to be a Russian Mafia operation. There is a view that the failure was the result of deliberate sabotage by Chechens who were secretly working with the FSB.

  20 Roman Fomishenko, “Moscow. A Vile Blow Against the Innocent,” Moscow Krasnaya Zvezda (in Russian), October 25, 2002.

  21 John Giduck, Terror at Beslan: A Russian Tragedy with Lessons for American Schools, Golden, CO: Archangel Group, 2005, pp. 77–78.

  22 Pavel Dulman, “Yanderbiyev Sought in Qatar,” Moscow Rossikaya Gazeta (in Russian), November 1, 2002, p. 3.

  23 http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/10/24/moscow.siege.video

  24 Baku Zerkalo, October 26, 2002, cited in Dolnik and Fitzgerald, op. cit., p. 182.

  25 Kazantsev was named in 2000 as the presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District (2000–2004). This is why he should have conducted the negotiations in Dubrovka.

  26 “Hostages speak of storming terror,” BBC News, October 26, 2002.

  27 The terrorists learned a great deal from their mistakes at Dubrovka, and were better prepared for the later attack on Beslan. Because the authorities used gas to neutralize the gunmen during the Dubrovka operation, the attackers in Beslan came equipped with gas masks, and smashed all the windows after entering the school to improve ventilation.

  28 Chemical toxicology tests at the time showed that the drug was one that acted like carfentanyl but did not leave its signature residue. There was only one possible explanation: The Russians had developed a new, undetectable version of carfentanyl, possibly by adding BMU8 to create a powerful knockout gas.

  29 Nick Paton Walsh, “Siege Rescue Carnage as Gas Kills Hostages,” The Guardian, October 27, 2002, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/oct/27/chechnya.russia3

  30 “Mission Accomplished,” Moscow Gazeta, October 30, 2002, pp. 1–6.

  31 Movsar B. Suleimov (Barayev), Ruslan Elmurzayev, an Arab mercenary called “Yassir,” A.N. Baihatov, R. Baihatov, Muslim Adilsultanov, Selikat Aliyeva, Yupayeva, Kurbanova, Tagirov, the Khadjiyeva sisters—Ayman and Koku, Husainov, Zura Bitsiyeva (Barayeva), the Ganiyeva sisters—Khadizhat and Fatima, Aset Gishnurkayeva, Mutayeva, Bairakova, Madina Dugayeva, Tatayev, Shidayev, Arslanbek Abdulsheykhov, S. S. Elmurzayeva, Ahmetov, Bimurzayev, Husenova, M. B. Hadjiyeva, Bisultanova, Vitaliyeva, Luiza Bakuyeva, R. A. Hashanov, Tushayeva, Saidov, as well as terrorists using counterfeit documents in the names of Jabrailov, Turpal Khamzatov, Musayev, and three male corpses (corpses 2007, 2028, and 2036) whose identities were not determined.

  32 Dolnik and Fitzgerald, op. cit., p. 65.

  33 CNN, October 25, 2002, Gunmen Release Chilling Video, www.archives.cnn.com/2002/world/europe/10/24/moscow.siege.video/.

  34 Simon Jeffrey, “The Moscow Theater Siege,” The Guardian, October 28, 2002, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/oct/28/chechnya.russia6

  35 BBC “Hostage Takers Ready to Die,” October 25, 2002, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2360735.stm

  36 Soldiers found eighteen new Russian passports, nine old Soviet passports, and dozens of police department–issued temporary Chechen IDs. In addition to fake IDs there were also authentic documents with other people’s names. Many of the men carried real passports with other names; Barayev had the passport of Shamikhazi Akhmatkhanov. However, the female terrorists all possessed passports with their real names.

  37 Viv Groskop, “Chechnya’s Deadly ‘Black Widows,’” The New Statesman, September 6, 2004, www.newstatesman.com/200409060023

  38 Viv Groskop, “Women at the Heart of Terror Cells,” The Guardian, September 5, 2004, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/05/russia.chechnya1

  39 Ibid.

  40 Ibid.

  41 Ibid.

  42 Chechens often have an official name (for passport purposes) and another name that is commonly used within the family and that may be completely different. Sometimes the grandparents will give the children another completely different name, without informing the parents. Thus the inconsistencies in several of the Dubrovka accounts. Sources identify the bomber as Khadijat, although her parents call her Ayshat or Fatimat. There are lots of different name spellings depending on the source.

  43 Kim Murphy, “A Cult of Reluctant Killers,” Los Angeles Times, February 4, 2004.

  44 Internal Displaced Monitoring Centre, “Women and Children Suffer Violence and Abuse (2008),” October 5, 2009, www.internaldisplacement.org/idmc/website/countries.nsf/(httpEnvelopes)/88CA1F1C7BDED7D2802570B8005AA947?OpenDocument

  45 Murphy, “A Cult of Reluctant Killers,” op. cit.

  46 Anna Nugzarova and Natalya Khetagurova, “‘Basayev Asked Me How My Sisters Ended up at Nord-Ost’; Man Charged with Preparing Acts of Terrorism Acknowledges His Guilt,” Moscow Gazeta, January 10, 2005, p. 4.

  47 Interview with Zarema Muzhakhoyeva, Ren TV, Moscow, June 24, 2004.

  48 Sophie Shihab, “Black Widows of Chechnya,” Le Monde, October 29, 2003, web.radicalparty.org/pressreview/print_right.php?func=detail&par=6859.

  49 Elizabeth Frombgen, “Burkas, Babushkas, and Bombs: Toward an Understanding of the ‘Black Widow,’” unpublished ms, prepared for the Pacific Northwest Political Science Association, 2008, p. 4.

  50 Anna Politkovskaya, A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya, translated by Alexander Burry and Tatiana Tulchinsky, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

  51 Murphy, “A Cult of Reluctant Killers,” op. cit.

  52 Ruslan Isayev, “The Chechen Woman and her Role in the New Society,” Prague Watchdog, June 21, 2004, www.watchdog.cz/index.php?show=000000-000015-000006-000008&lang=1

  53 Anne Speckhard and Khapta Akhmedova, “Black Widows, Chechen Female Suicide Terrorists,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 2006, pp. 67–68.

  54 Groskop, “Women at the Heart of Terror Cells,” op. cit.

  55 Amnesty International, “Urge Putin to Stop Violence Against Women in Chechnya,” AIUSA, http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/site/c.goJTI0OvElH/b.1157849/k.928E/

  Urge_Russian_President_Putin_to_Stop_Violence_Against_Women_in_Chechnya.htm

  56 Svideteli: Cherniyye Vdovy (“Witnesses: Black Widows”), RTR TV Russia, October 14, 2004, 7:20 P.M.

  57 Groskop, “Women at the Heart of Terror Cells,” op. cit.

  58 Human Rights Watch, “Rape Allegations Surface in Chechnya,” January 20, 2000, available at www.hrw.org/press.2000/01/chech0120.htm

  59 www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004BE3B1/(httpInfoFiles)/BCA90FF82910EA0BC125764D0056508F/$file/Russian+Federation+-+October+2009.pdf.

  60 Tom Parfitt, “Meet Black Fatima—She Programmes Women to Kill,” Daily Telegraph, July 20, 2003, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/1436622/Meet-Black-Fatima---sheprogrammes-women-to-kill.html

  61 Laura Sjoberg and Caron E. Gentry, Mothers, Monsters and Whores, London: Zed Books, 2007, p. 91.

  62 Nabi Abdullaev, “Women to the Forefront of Chechen Terrorism,” International Relations and Security Network, 2005, p. 1, www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=97812005

  3 The “Pregnant” Bomber

  1 DM Daugherty, “The Women Hunger Strikers of Armagh Prison.” October 2002, http://irelandsown.net/armaghwomen.html

  2 Laura E. Lyons, “At the End of the Day”: An Interview with Mairead Keane National Head of Sein Fein Women’s Department.” Boundary 2 19:2, 1992.

  3 Not her real name.

  4 “Baby Bomb Bid at Airport,” Ulster News Letter, April 30, 1990, p. 5.

  5 www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ira/conflict

  6 John Horgan, “From War of Maneuver to War of Position: A Brief History of the Provisional IRA and the Irish Republic,” in Combating Terrorism in Northern Ireland, James Dingley (ed.), London: Routledge, 2009, p. 228.

  7 Ibid, p. 230.

  8 Eunan O’Halpin, Defending Ireland: The Irish State and Its Enemies Since 1922, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 151.

  9 Robert Kee, Ireland: A History, London: Time Warner Books, 1980 (revised edition, 2005), p. 237; Peter Berre
sford Ellis, Eyewitness to Irish History, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2004, p. 281.

  10 www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ira/conflict

  11 Catholics in Ireland were underemployed or unemployed. As families grew, the state would not grant permission to build new apartments or housing estates. Most families lived several to one home, and housing for Catholics was not increased commensurate with their growing population. Any new developments were built almost exclusively for Protestants, further exacerbating the relations between the two communities.

  12 Bernadette Devlin, Price of my Soul, London: Pan Books, 1969, foreword and chapter 12.

  13 Richard English, Armed Struggle: A History of the IRA, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 106.

  14 Seán Mac Stíofáin, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, London: Gordon Cremonesi, 1975 (second edition, Free Ireland Book Club, 1979), p. 146.

  15 John Horgan, Divided We Stand: The Strategy and Psychology of Ireland’s Dissident Terrorists. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming in 2011.

  16 Dr. Raymond McClean, The Road to Bloody Sunday, Derry, Northern Ireland: Guildhall Press, 1983.

  17 Bishop Edward Daly, in an interview shown in “Secret History: Bloody Sunday,” broadcast by Channel 4 Television, UK, on January 22, 1992, http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/bsunday/sum.htm

  18 www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ira/conflict

  19 Margareta D’Arcy, Tell Them Everything: A Sojourn in the Prison of HMS Queen Elizabeth II at Ard Macha (Armagh), London: Pluto Press, 1981, p. 66.

  20 Father Denis Faul, “Beating Women in Prison: Black February, Armagh Prison,” special report, February 1980.

  21 Some cells were eight feet by eleven feet.

  22 D’Arcy, op. cit., pp. 54–55. However, the sheets and pillows were removed as punishment after the February 7 incident.

  23 Nell McCafferty, The Armagh Women, Dublin: Co-op Books, 1981, p. 10.

  24 D’Arcy, op. cit., p. 57.

  25 Interviews with female ex-prisoners, Belfast, August 2009.

  26 Mark Hoffman, “Perspectives on the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition,” p. 72, passim www.sit.edu/SITOccasionalPapers/ops03.pdf#page=72