The Influence of Family In The Emergence Of Female Suicide Bombers In Iraq
Strategic Social would like to offer a point of clarification for our readers before we present the body of this analysis. This post refers to the practice known as “honor killing,” where members of a family, usually male, will kill a female family member for having caused what they perceive as some great dishonor to the family – sometimes the dishonor in question involves nothing more than the woman in question having been the victim of rape or sexual assault.[1] The United Nations reports that while this practice tends to be more prevalent in countries with Muslim majority populations, it also notes that the practice has nothing to do with religion and has been condemned by Islamic leaders. Strategic Social would like to echo the United Nations’ view on this issue and point out that the practice of “honor killing” has nothing to do with religion in general or Islam in particular and is based more upon cultural practices related to the status of women. Evidence of this view can be seen in the fact that “honor killings” are conducted by non-Muslims as well as by Muslims, such as a case seen in Iraq in 2007 where Iraqi Yazidis, who are members of a religion that has a small following in Iraq and is unrelated to Islam, stoned a 17 year-old girl to death for having a Muslim boyfriend.
As we discussed in Part I of this series, for some time in the Islamic World, many people have accepted the notion that there is a role for women in jihad,[2] but in the past, this role has generally been an indirect or supporting role, such as raising money for the men fighting in a jihadist cause, or providing food or safe houses for jihadist militants. However, since the start of the war in Iraq in 2003, we have seen some women take on a much more dangerous and dramatic role in the ongoing Iraqi insurgency: that of the suicide bomber.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the now-deceased founder of the radical insurgent group Al-Qaeda in Iraq, announced that his organization had conducted its first female suicide bomber attack in when a woman detonated an explosive belt outside a U.S. military facility in the Iraq city of Tall Afar, reportedly killing at least five Iraqi civilians and injuring more than 30. In August 2009, the New York Times estimated that since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, there have been 60 suicide bombing attacks or attempted suicide bombing attacks carried out by women in Iraq.
Analyses of these incidents indicate that a number of different factors can cause a woman to become a suicide bomber, but one of the most significant factors appears to be the influence of a woman’s family. There are several types of cases where the influence of a woman’s family causes her to become a suicide bomber: where a woman has been shamed in some horrific way and feels a need to redeem herself, where a woman chooses to emulate or is inspired by male family members who have taken up the jihadist/insurgent cause, and where a woman is forced by family members to become a suicide bomber.
The subject of rape is a very delicate topic in Iraqi society. Women who are raped are often not viewed as victims but as people who have committed a despicable act that brings shame not only upon the woman who was raped, but upon her entire family. In most of Iraq, there are few, if any, support structures such as like counseling centers or women’s shelters for women who are raped. Families are most often the only resource a woman has to turn to in these situations, and frequently a family will try to cover up the incident or pretend that it never happened in order to minimize the stigma that they believe will fall upon them if it becomes known that a member of their family was raped. In some cases, a family will go so far as to try to kill a woman who was raped in order to purge the perceived stain upon the family’s honor.[3] The woman herself will often feel tremendous guilt because of the shame that her family experiences, and often finds herself in a vulnerable position where she can be more easily convinced to do something to remove the burden of shame caused by the rape from herself and her family.
Tragically, we have learned that radical Iraqi insurgents have shown a willingness to exploit this unfortunate social convention. In January 2009, Iraqi police arrested a woman suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers on behalf of Ansar al-Islam, a radical Salafist-jihadist insurgent group that is one of the few major insurgent groups in Iraq to publicly claim credit for conducting suicide bombing attacks. According to media reports, the woman who was arrested, Samira Jassam, recruited the women by arranging for them to be raped and then approaching them afterwards and convincing them that only way to redeem themselves in the eyes of their families would be to commit an act of martyrdom on behalf of the mujahideen: namely, a suicide bombing attack. Jassam reportedly confessed after her arrest that 28 of the more than 80 women that she recruited actually carried out attacks in Iraq.
Some female spouses or relatives of members of radical insurgent groups have been literally forced into becoming suicide bombers. Such was the case of Rania al- Ambaki, a 15 year-old Iraqi girl who was arrested after a suicide vest that she was wearing failed to detonate. Ambaki said that her husband, a member of the Islamic State of Iraq (an Al-Qaeda in Iraq front organization), her mother, and her aunt drugged her and put the suicide vest on her, which she said she did not know contained a bomb. Iraqi authorities believe that al-Ambaki’s relatives intended to detonate the vest by remote control. They believe that al-Ambaki’s case is part of a pattern displayed by the Islamic State of Iraq to force young and vulnerable women, such as mentally disabled women, into becoming unwitting tools for carrying out suicide bombing attacks. As was mentioned in Part I of this series, insurgent groups have turned to using women for suicide bombings, whether they are knowing or unknowing participants in such operations, because women in Iraq are less likely to be searched at security checkpoints.
While some women have clearly been coerced into participating, it is important to note that other women have chosen to do so willingly, though it often appears that these women were inspired to do so by family members. These are women who, in other circumstances, would not have willingly chosen to become part of violent insurgent groups, but are drawn into such groups because they have brothers, husbands, or other male family members who have done so. For example, on June 22, 2008, a young Iraqi woman in her 30s named Wenza Ali Mutlaq detonated a suicide vest that she was wearing, killing herself and 15 other people. This incident occurred only 12 days after her brother detonated a suicide vest that he was wearing during a shootout with Iraqi security forces. A similar incident occurred in February 2008 when an Iraqi woman posing as a journalist seeking an interview with a prominent tribal leader who had cooperated with U.S. forces detonated a bomb, killing herself and four of the leader’s guards. Afterwards, it was discovered that the woman had a brother who had carried out a suicide bombing attack in 2004.
One of the most prominent examples of this phenomenon is Sajida al-Rishawi, who was the wife of an Al-Qaeda in Iraq member who helped carry out suicide bombing attacks against hotels in Amman, Jordan in 2005. She was also issued a suicide belt and was supposed to have detonated herself in one of the hotels as part of the attack, but her belt failed to detonate and she was captured by Jordanian authorities. Al-Rishawi, who was described in some news sources as being the sister of a key aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said that her husband planned the attack, equipped her with the suicide belt, and instructed her on how to use it.
Yet another example is the story of a suspected would-be Iraqi female suicide bomber named Baida who, in an interview given to a New York Times reporter after she was imprisoned, described how she used to volunteer to help her brothers assemble improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to be used against U.S. forces in Iraq, especially after a U.S. military raid on the family home resulted in the deaths of her father and four of her brothers. In the interview, says that after the raid, she worked with her cousins, who were part of a more radical insurgent group than her brothers, and how her involvement with that group gradually led her to decide that she wanted to become a suicide bomber.
These examples show us the tremendous influence that family and family honor have on women in Iraq. It shows that in Iraq, a place where many people tend to view sexual assault less as a crime committed against women than as a source of shame caused by women, and where there are few resources to support women who have been victims of rape[4], some women will agree to do things that they would never otherwise do (i.e., participate in suicide bombing attacks) if they think it will redeem their families’ honor. These examples also teach us that when looking at individual militants and their networks, one must not overlook their female family members.
[1] Rape is not the only act that triggers an honor killing – for example, in some societies, young women have been killed for leaving the family home by themselves without the permission of her father, or for becoming involved with men from a religious faith different than that of the woman and her family.
[2] See Part I for a discussion of the meaning of the term “jihad.”
[3] This is an example of what is referred to as “honor killing.”
[4] The Sulaimaniyah-based NGO Asuda is one of the few such resources in Iraq.
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This is a well written article that explores the motivations of people who commit terrible attrocities against their own family members, and how these attrocities can be exploited by terrorists. I can’t think of anything more dishonorable than persecuting and killing a wife, daughter, mother, or sister just because she had been the unfortunate victim of a rapist. A woman who has been brutalized and traumatized by a rapist needs the support and understanding of her loved ones in order to recover. Killing a woman because she was raped – this is the epitome of ignorance. What sort of person could do something like this? It is incomprehensible. There is nothing honorable about this. It is murder, and the criminals who commit these acts are murderers and should be dealt with as such. Likewise, the rapists should be prosecuted and incarcerated. Who or what sort of institution would perpetuate this twisted social code of honor killing? Al Queda. God help us all if they win.
Thank you Ms. Al-Azzawi for this enlightening blog on female jihadists and “honor killing.” It is a powerful sentence when you state that the “practice of honor killing has nothing to do with religion in general or Islam in particular and is based more upon cultural practices related to the status of women.” I plan to pass it on to my Relatives and Friends, there is so much ignorance on this subject.