re: #245 sattv4u2

I did too. As reported (that there were females amongst the group, if not leading it) would have been a big shift from previous fundy terrorist assaults on public places

It’s not actually something all that new.

Terror’s ‘invisible women’

Since 1985, terrorism’s so-called invisible women have accounted for a quarter of fatal attacks in Iraq, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Morocco and Palestine. My research found that by mid-2008, women had acted as suicide bombers 21 times in Iraq’s markets and other civilian venues patronized by Shiites.

Other research has demonstrated that since 2002 women have carried out fully 50% of suicide attacks in Sri Lanka, Turkey and Chechnya.

So why do we think of violent jihadists as largely male? One reason is that terrorism observers, mostly men who have historically focused on men at war, tend to view women who participate in acts of terrorism as exceptions. Given women’s increasingly violent roles in jihadist organizations, however, researchers overlook females as effective killers at our peril. […]