ISLAMABAD - The tactic of the Pakistan Taliban to use veil-clad female suicide
bombers to effectively strike their targets without being intercepted has set
alarm bells ringing for the security agencies which are already finding it hard
to nip al-Qaeda and Taliban-sponsored terrorism in the bud.
A female suicide attacker and a separate handcart bomb targeted the Pakistani
police on August 11 in the Lahori Gate area of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province, killing seven people in the first deadly suicide attack
during the holy month of Ramadan.
Peshawar is on the front line of a Taliban-led insurgency and borders the
country's largely lawless tribal belt which is described by the United States
as the global headquarters of al-Qaeda. The
target of the female bomber, who was believed to be 17 years old, was a police
check post that was completely destroyed in the attack.
The girl first threw a hand grenade on the check post, 20 meters from the site
of the first blast, which had already killed seven people including five
policemen, and then blew herself up. The bomber's vest failed to explode fully,
resulting in one death only, that of an elderly woman. Witnesses were reported
as saying that before the explosion they had heard the girl scream: "Allah-O-Akbar."
(God is great).
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistan Taliban - TTP) claimed responsibility for
the attack, with TTP spokesman Azam Tariq telling the media that the group has
a large number of women suicide bombers ready to be used in future attacks
against the security forces to avenge the Pakistani military for operations in
the tribal belt.
TTP head in Mohmand Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA),
Commander Omar Khalid, threatened further suicide attacks until Pakistani
military offensives, which he said were being waged to appease the United
States, come to an end.
"The suicide attacks were in reaction to the current military operation in the
tribal areas," Khalid told Agence France-Presse by telephone from an
undisclosed location. The TTP leader said that the use of female bombers was
part of a new strategy.
Khalid has been active in the TTP's propaganda machine since the death of Osama
bin Laden, and has been vocal in his support of al-Qaeda. He had vowed revenge
on Pakistani and American security forces for the al-Qaeda founder's death,
saying: "We will take revenge for Osama's killing from the Pakistan government,
its security forces, the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence], the CIA [Central
Intelligence Agency] and the Americans. They are now on our hit list."
The Peshawar suicide bombing was the third suicide attack carried out by a
female in Pakistan since December 2010. Interior Minister Rehman Malik has
condemned TTP for using women as human bombs, saying that it is a sign of their
desperation in the wake of strict security measures that have made it difficult
to strike targets at will. He agreed that the new ploy of using females to
create havoc could complicate the government agencies' efforts to stem a
growing insurgency by extremists given the fact that women in Pakistani
culture, especially in a conservative society like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, are
rarely frisked or searched in security checks.
According to the security agencies responsible for dealing with suicide
bombings, the emerging phenomenon of female bombers poses a bigger challenge to
the law enforcement agencies in Pakistan since women in their all-enveloping burqas
(veils) can easily breach security. They added that a veil is perfect for the
concealment of explosive devices as well as suicide jackets.
Well-informed circles in the security agencies say both the TTP and al-Qaeda
have established female suicide bombing cells in remote areas of north western
Pakistan and north eastern Afghanistan. The existence of these cells was
confirmed by a 12-year-old Pakistani girl, Meena Gul, who confessed in June
2010 to having been trained to be a human bomb. Meena Gul said she was
brainwashed to kill Pakistani troops in one of several such training camps. She
was detained by the police in the Munda area in Dir district of the Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa.
According to Meena, female suicide bombers from Pakistan and Afghanistan are
being trained in small cells on both sides of the border, to be eventually
dispatched to their missions with a sermon, "God will reward you with a place
in heaven." Meena said her cell was led by Zainab, her sister-in-law, who used
to dress as a man and fought alongside the Taliban against Pakistani troops.
Prior to the two suicide attacks in 2010 by female bombers in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, there was no recorded instance of any women bombers engaging in this
deadly activity in either country.
Sources in the security agencies say the TTP training cells on both sides of
border are working under the command of Qari Zia Rahman, the dual-hatted
Taliban and al-Qaeda leader. Qari Zia is not only a top regional commander of
Tehrik-e-Taliban but also an al-Qaeda member who operates in the Kunar and
Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan as well as across the border in the Bajaur
Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.
Qari Zia's private army has fighters from Pakistan, Chechnya, Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and various Arab countries. He commands a brigade in
al-Qaeda's paramilitary Shadow Army, which is called the Lashkar-e-Zil (LeZ),
previously led by Ilyas Commander Kashmiri, who was reportedly killed in a US
drone strike in July 2011.
The Pakistani interior minister had claimed in March 2010 that Qari Zia had
been killed in an airstrike, but Qari Zia later spoke to the media and mocked
Rehman Malik for wrongly reporting his killing. Similarly, the CIA, which
offers a $350,000 bounty for information leading to his death or capture, has
targeted him in multiple drone attacks in Kunar province since January 2010,
but failed to hunt him down despite repeated attempts.
The phenomenon of female bombers
Female suicide bombers are relatively new in South Asia. The first known
suicide bombing by a female anywhere in the world came in 1985 when a 16-year-
old girl, Khyadali Sana, drove an explosive-laden truck into an Israeli Defense
Force convoy and killed two soldiers.
Since then, women have driven bomb-laden vehicles, carried bomber bags, and
strapped huge explosives and metal implements on their bodies in Lebanon, Sri
Lanka, Chechnya, Israel, Turkey, Somalia and last but not the least, in
Pakistan. Organizations worldwide which have publicized their use of female
bombers include the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Syrian
Socialist National Party (SSNP), the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Chechen
rebels, Al Aqsa Martyrs, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and, most recently,
Hamas.
While the SSNP has the distinction of deploying the first ever female suicide
bomber, the LTTE became the world's foremost suicide bombers and proved the
tactic to be so unnerving and effective that their methods and killing
innovations were studied and copied, most notably in the Middle East. The LTTE
has committed the most attacks, close to 200, using female bombers in 40
percent of cases. The largest number killed (170) was in Moscow in October 2002
when Chechen rebels, including a high proportion of women, held hostages in a
theater, eventually leading to a futile rescue operation in which 129 captives
and 41 rebels were killed. Palestinian suicide bombers have carried out the
largest number of attacks in the recent years.
The youngest female bomber so far is 16-year old Khyadali Sana (who detonated
herself in 1985), followed by 17-year old Laila Kaplan, (who had blew herself
up in 1996). The oldest female suicide bomber was 37-year old Shagir Karima
Mahmud in 1987. The first LTTE female suicide bomber was Dhanu, who killed
Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991. The only pregnant female
suicide bomber was from the Kurdistan Workers Party, killing six Turkish
soldiers in June 1996. Her name remains unknown. The first Russian "Black
Widow" was Hawa Barayev, who acted on behalf of the Chechen rebels in June 2000
and killed 27 Russian Special Forces soldiers by exploding her suicide vest.
The first female bomber in Israel, representing the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade,
was Wafa Idris, a paramedic who exploded herself in January 2002, killing an
81-year-old man and injuring over 100. The first female bomber who acted on
behalf of the Palestinian Islamic Jehad was a 19-year-old student, Hiba
Daraghmeh, who detonated herself in a shopping mall, killing three people. The
first female Hamas bomber was 22-year-old Reem al-Reyashi, who blew herself up
and killed four Israeli soldiers at an army checkpoint on January 14, 2004.
Reem was a mother who left behind a husband, a three-year-old son and
one-year-old daughter. On June 11, 2011, a veiled female bomber detonated
herself at the official residence of the country's Interior Minister Abdi
Shakur Sheikh Hassan in Mogadishu, killing him on the spot. It is believed that
the suicide attack could have been a retaliatory act by al-Shabaab insurgents
in the wake of a sustained government push against them.
The first incident of suicide bombing carried out by a female in Afghanistan
happened on June 21, 2010 in Kunar province, killing two American soldiers. The
first suicide attack by a female bomber in Pakistan was carried out on December
24, 2010 at an aid distribution center of the United Nations World Food Program
in Khar area of Bajaur Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas,
killing 47 people.
The second attack was carried out on June 25, 2011 when a husband and wife
team, said to be Uzbeks, attacked a police station in the Dera Ismail Khan City
of Khyber Pakhtoonkhawa, killing seven policemen and a tea boy. The TTP had
claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out to avenge the
May 2, 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden.
The use of female suicide bombers by Taliban extremists has prompted the
Pakistan media to demand that all suspected veil-clad women should be searched
without exception. Pakistani English newspaper Daily Times stated in its August
13 editorial:
"The piety of holy warriors has shown its true colors -
the sanctity of the holy month of Ramadan seems irrelevant to them as evidenced
by the Peshawar suicide hit carried out by a female bomber.
Pakistan has witnessed a string of terror attacks following the May 2, 2011
killing of Bin Laden in Abbottabad. It seems that the very culture that the
terrorists claim to uphold - of keeping a woman untouched by male hands and
covered in a veil as well - is exactly what these monsters are using against
us. If women are the new lethal weapons against the citizens and the state then
counter steps must be drawn up to face this threat. Women, especially those in
the baggy burqa, should be searched without exception".
Amir
Mir is a senior Pakistani journalist and the author of several books on
the subject of militant Islam and terrorism, the latest being The
Bhutto murder trail: From Waziristan to GHQ.
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