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The grim truth behind training female suicide bombers
Published: 05 April, 2010, 09:32
Edited: 27 April, 2010, 22:25
TAGS: Children, Russia, Terrorism
Russian special forces in Dagestan are searching for the relatives of a 17-year-old female suicide bomber who blew herself up a week ago in the Moscow Metro.
Teenager Djennet Abdurakhmanova was the widow of a Dagestani militant killed by federal security services during a raid there last year.
The second female Moscow Metro suicide bomber has allegedly been identified by her father, a resident of the Republic of Dagestan, after seeing pictures of her posted on the Internet.
Rasul Magomedov identified the woman as his 28-year-old daughter Maryam Sharipova, who committed the first terror attack in the Moscow Metro on March 29, Novaya Gazeta reports.
The explosion in the Moscow Metro may have been carried out by Maryam Sharipova, confirms the senior Prosecutor’s assistant from the Dagestani Prosecutor’s Office, RIA Novosti reports.
“Sharipova’s father told the Prosecutor’s Office on Monday that he saw pictures of his daughter on the Internet,” the spokesperson said. “He specified that the last time he saw his daughter was March 26. On March 28 she was in Makhachkala, from where she called her mother and said she was going to visit her friend. After that she disappeared.”
Only the forensic investigation will confirm or deny the information, added the source. The information that Maryam Sharipova was married to a militant leader cannot be officially confirmed yet, he added.
Maryam Sharipova, who worked as a teacher in a village school, was very responsible, told the head of the local administration to RIA Novosti, noting that she was a good student at university. “I saw her in the picture, that’s surely her. Everybody recognized her. But I don’t know what she did it for,” he added.
Rasul Magomedov said that his daughter was religious but not radical. “I exclude the possibility that she could have been psychologically treated. She had a psychology diploma herself,” he emphasized.
Doomed faith
There are many chilling examples of how women under a strong militant influence are encouraged to sacrifice everything, even their lives, in the name of terrorism. Aisha's case is one of them.
During a typical special operation in Dagestan the police had trapped and surrounded a militant and his wife Aisha in their home. Security forces then told them to lay down their arms and leave the house.
A desperate phone call was then made from inside the house; Aisha called her husband’s sister.
“I am pregnant. I was praying and I thought: should I surrender?” Aisha said.
“Please, don’t!” implored the sister. “What's good about this life? Be strong until the last moment! Ask Allah not to let you stay alive.”
Regions like the North Caucasus, with a predominantly Muslim population, seem more vulnerable to the recruiting methods of extremism.
Militants from abroad go there in search of carriers for their lethal weapons before unleashing them on public targets. And it is this influence that likely made 17-year-old Djennet blow herself up in the Moscow Metro.
Malaysian student Sim Eih-Xing who survived the blast believes he may have seen the girl just moments before the explosion.
“Her eyes were wide open, and there was a feeling that she was not normal. But at that time I did not suspect that she was a suicide bomber,” remembered Sim Eih-Xing.
 Djennet Abdurakhmanova (AFP Photo / Newsteam / HO) |
Security sources say militants have changed tactics. While before they mainly attacked police in the region, now female suicide bombers are being trained to later be spread across the country. This method, widely employed by extremists in the Middle East, is now becoming a powerful tool for militants in Russia’s South.
“Terrorism in the Caucasus comes from the outside and is funded from the outside,” stated Viktor Nadein-Raevsky from the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. “The terror attacks are characteristic of Al-Qaeda: the first blast attracts crowds of people, then the second blast hits.”
The method of the two recent double attacks in Southern Russia has been almost identical. On March 31 in Dagestan 12 were people killed, and in Ingushetia on Monday, April 5, two police officers were killed and two injured.
International terrorists use many different tactics to recruit female suicide bombers.
“For example, they try to disgrace women, to rape them to deprive them of any hope for a better future – such things do matter in the Caucasus, just like for any other Muslims,” Nadein-Raevsky explains. “Such women are psychologically shattered, broken. They are prepared to become gun fodder.”
That was supposed to happen with another 22-year-old woman who walked into a shop in Dagestan’s capital, with a bag full of explosives, ready to kill herself and innocent people. Luckily, the attack was averted that time.
Female suicide bombings are not yet a widespread phenomenon in Russia, but it is clear that the authorities need to take a firm grip on the problem to avoid a repeat of the tragic events in the Moscow Metro last week.
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What you are suggesting, Kihnu, is done by a losing side as a last ditch effort and usually is not effective anyways. It just makes the conflict bloodier, but does not change the outcome. Certainly, it is much easier for terrorists to do the same thing to the relatives of police officers and other government officials, than it is for government to do such things to relatives of terrorists. Another problem with your suggestion is where do you stop and draw the line? Do you kill the first of kin? Then each new person you kill have other relatives, which will be potential terrorist. This way you multiply the terrorists by 1000s. Russia is winning there, and should not antagonize people. Russia should double its efforts to stop the agitation from foreign sources. It should infiltrate these groups, and find out where the foreign source of agitation, arms, and money is. The final winner of any war is the side that wins the hearts of the other side. As Ben Franklin once said, and Winston Churchill repeated it: “Defeat is never fatal. Victory is never final. It’s courage that counts.” To win a war, Sun Tzu suggests in his writings "The Art of War", is to know yourself and your enemy: "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." Also, I can tell you mbach your writing will not win any friends or hearts in that region, it just inflames people of that region with rage, needlessly.
There's nothing new in this. For centuries men have been recruiting emotionally vulnerable women and using them towards their own ends: to line their pockets for them as prostitutes, or for operations such as these. Let's be honest, the men recruiting these women are only pimps of a different order. The international media should not hesitate in depicting them this way. Why? Because these particular men may be preying on local women, but many more vulnerable women are being seduced via the internet. I've already heard of countless women who have abandoned everything, including boyfriend and home, in order to run off with Muslim men whom they have met over the internet. The usual process usually follows the same pattern: an emotionally or otherwise unstable woman 'meets' a muslim man over the internet and enters into an online romance with him. Even though they have not yet met in person, he promises to marry her if she converts to Islam, and moves to his country. Sometimes the woman is still living with husband/boyfriend while this is going on. Once converted, she abandons everything, buys a one-way ticket, and flies to some Islamic country or another in order to marry the man, often taking her children along with her. It's all typical in gaining control over the woman: isolate her from her friends and family, fill her head with a new doctrine, and then physically separate her from everything familiar by bringing her into a new environment where she probably can't even speak the language and becomes fully dependent on her new husband. One of the big red-flags, I'd say, is that many of these women get their training in Islam via internet web-sites and not local mosques. The media would be doing these women a great favor in exposing the dangers of these on-line relationships, and encouraging them to, at the very least, visit a local neighborhood mosque and speak with their Imam, instead of visiting some internet site, before making any hasty decisions.
In order to combat terrorism one should try to understand the mindset and the ideals that drive a terrorist. For example, learn what true Islam stands for. According to the Coran if anyone suicides the reward will be hell. To kill indiscriminately is also a great evil. On a day of resurrection when we all will face Allah(God) and be judged all of those who did more evil than good will enter hell. In paradise will live those who did good, and no suicide bomber will enter paradise. Islam is about fighting against opression. Anyone who attempts to forcibly impose religion on anyone is acting in a manner of opression.Thus it is a duty of Muslims to fight againts those who inforce religion. As you see there is a line between true Muslims and opressors who call themselves "Muslims" but they are not. In the Coran itself says that there is no compulsion in religion. Whomever go against the Coran cannot be true Muslim. As you can see education about Islam can help tremendously in understanding otge people.