re: #54 Killgore Trout

I can’t seem to think of another Islamic terrorist cell with a female leader. It’s an unusual choice, especially considering the physical nature of the attack.

Then you’re not paying attention. From April 2012:

Terror’s ‘invisible women’

Women are becoming more lethal. In jihadist organizations — including even Al Qaeda, which had long banned females from violent roles — women are increasingly taking part in terrorist actions.

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.