Women suicide bombers - AUG 6, 2001
Published in The Straits Times
PALESTINIANS' NEW WEAPON:
Women suicide bombers
Arab women are reportedly lining up to
become martyrs after a decree by the
High Islamic Council; Israel fears they
will be harder to detect and stop
TEL AVIV - Terrorist activities in the Middle East are
feared to escalate further with the birth of a new
phenomenon - the female suicide bomber.
Palestinian women are queueing up in droves in
response to a decree that urges them to join the fight
against Israel, according to a report in Britain's Sunday
Times newspaper yesterday.
The decree, or fatwa, was issued by the
High Islamic Council in Saudi Arabia on
Wednesday. It came after eight Palestinians
were killed on Tuesday in an Israeli
helicopter raid on the offices of
Hamas, a radical Palestinian outfit.
Among the victims in the West Bank town of Nablus was
a senior Hamas leader and two children.
The fatwa was a contentious issue and many Muslim
leaders were opposed to it. But the attack on Hamas
swung the decision.
Women have cheered the order, said Palestinian security
sources. They shouted in exultation: 'Make a bomb of
me, please!'
On Friday, Ayman Razawi, a 23-year-old mother of two,
was caught with 6 kg of TNT explosive at Tel Aviv's
central bus station.
She was spotted by a guard placing a package on the
pavement by the station. The police found a bomb inside
a detergent box and she is now being interrogated by
Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security agency.
Saying that it was reasonable for women to be ready to
make the ultimate sacrifice, Sheikh Abdullah Nimr
Darwish, spiritual leader of Arabs in Israel, told The
Times: 'The women will fight. Now the Palestinians
prefer to be killed at the front rather than wait and be
killed at home.'
Israeli security sources fear that Razawi's example will
be followed by many other women. Their zeal, born of
conviction that they are on a holy mission, would make it
an almost impossible task for the security forces to
prevent them.
Palestinians are also sure that Israel cannot catch every
young woman, said The Times report, which quoted
Sheikh Abdullah as saying: 'Israel has the Dimona
nuclear plant, but we Palestinians have a stronger
Dimona - the suiciders. We can use them on a daily
basis.'
He also pointed, with pride, at the sight of Palestinian
women in white shrouds at funerals - a sign of their
readiness to become a shuhada, or martyr.
The participation of women in suicide cadres would be
a serious threat because they would be more difficult
than men to detect.
Suicide bombers are said to come mostly from
middle-class backgrounds.
Of 83 men who perished on suicide missions since
1993, half were students or graduates.
