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The phenomenon of women's involvement in acts of terrorism around the world is growing, including acts of terrorism in Indonesia that use women as suicide bombers. Terrorism crimes are included in non-military threats so that they must be faced with non-military strategies. In this case, BNPT is the leading sector in implementing non-military strategies to prevent women from being involved in terrorism and also deradicalisation efforts for prisoners, deportees and returnees. The purpose of this study is to analyse how the motives and factors of women can be involved in terrorism and how the non-military defence strategy to overcome women's involvement in terrorism. The research method used is qualitative which is conducted by using desk review technique. The results show that there are two opinions found to be the root cause of women's involvement in terrorism, the first is patriarchy culture and women as victims. But the tendency in Indonesia that occurs is women as victims, the powerlessness of women who are bound by patriarchal culture, the limited insight they have is also the reason so that women are victims of terrorism itself, the findings of the other root of the problem are social inequality or economic problems. Non-military strategy can be implemented by increasing awareness and education for women with a religious approach, economic empowerment, and also women's equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women have become increasingly active in a variety of terrorist activities over the last decade, with increased roles as combatants, suicide bombers, wives to male members of terrorist groups, birthing the next generation of fighters, and handling logistics, among other things. All of these are critical roles in the growth of the menace. However, counter-terrorism strategies in Nigeria have primarily targeted male militants while overlooking the fact that women are playing leading roles in terrorism. The study is qualitative in nature as it depends largely on documentary review, observations and interrogations on the involvement of women in terrorism in Nigeria. The study explains why viewing terrorism through a gender lens could provide a reliable understanding of the threats as well as critical intelligence in the battle against terrorism. The study found out that women contribute significantly to terrorism, not only as covert fighters but also as overt perpetrators. Therefore, the study contributes to existing knowledge in the area of terrorism studies by advocating that a broader consideration should be given to the dynamics of gender by taking terrorism as a gender-neutral concept. Consequently, the paper recommends that women's active participation should be incorporated into counter-terrorism plans and policy interventions that address the grievances identified to cause terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Targeted killing is a cornerstone of counter-terrorism strategy, and tactical mistakes made by militant groups are endemic in terrorism. Yet, how do they affect a militant group's suicide bomber deployment? Since joining Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab has carried out various types of suicide attacks on different targets. Using a uniquely constructed dataset, I introduce two typologies of suicide bomber detonation profiles – single and multiple – and explore the strategic purposes these have served for the group during multiphasic stages following targeted killings against the group's leadership and targeting errors committed by Al-Shabaab. The findings reveal that targeted killing has the opposite effect of disrupting suicide attacks, instead, leading to a rapid proliferation of unsophisticated single suicide attacks against civilian and military targets to maintain the perception of the group's potency. Thus, I argue that targeting errors made by Al-Shabaab have a more serious detrimental effect on its deployment of suicide attacks than any counter-terrorism measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From grassroots activism to armed combatants, Palestinian females have been active in combating Israel's occupation of Palestine since the early twentieth century. During the second Palestinian Intifada, however, western news media coverage of female-perpetrated 'suicide bombings' sensationalized these previously unseen acts. Utilizing Herjeet Marway's 'scandalous subwomen' societal reaction as a framework, this article engages in a multimodal analysis of the largely unexplored UK and US broadcast news coverage of female-perpetrated Palestinian 'suicide bombings'. Via a postcolonial perspective, it addresses this framework's focus upon 'exclusion': the projection that Palestinian female suicide bombers' political participation is subject to male influence. This article finds that exclusionary male figures, as well as Saudi Arabia, are framed by UK and US broadcast news media to afford Palestinian female suicide bombers a lack of political agency. Palestinian female 'suicide bombers', as a result, become victimized figures via the UK and US broadcast news media's orientalist 'perceived reality' which fails to recognize these female actors' agential will or their ability to freely participate in political acts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boko Haram is well known for its use of women as suicide bombers. While prior research has examined why this phenomenon is occurring, as well as what makes Boko Haram a unique terror group, the present study examines how their female bombers are infiltrating targets, what types of targets are being successfully infiltrated, and whether the bomber's gender has an impact on the infiltration tactic and the success of the bombing mission. Utilizing the open-sourced data provided by the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), a complementary qualitative dataset was compiled that included 102 female suicide bombing incidents from 2014 to 2017. Results of content analysis indicate that there was a variety of infiltration tactics used by the female bombers that progressively evolved as specific tactics' effectiveness waned, and that gender impacted the missions allowing for the female bombers to effectively infiltrate soft targets with high casualties, increasing the group's overall utilization of females in operative roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suicide bombing refers to someone who carries out a bomb attack with the intention of killing themselves as well as others. The destruction of human life, particularly involving women, without proper justification is considered contrary to religious and humanitarian values. However, there are extremist groups that use women to carry out suicide attacks that are oriented around religious arguments. Therefore, this study was conducted to analyze the fiqh perspectives on suicide attacks, particularly those carried out by women in the Islamic State (IS) group. This qualitative study used a selected informant interview approach in addition to document analysis of the IS group’s Dabiq magazine and other written materials. The results of the study show that suicide bombings, lone wolf attacks, and the like by women in the IS group against any infidels or those considered apostates are actions that are contrary to Islamic teachings. They are considered forbidden and sinful. However, scholars have differing views regarding suicide bombers that are specific only to the context of the Palestinian state and not other Islamic territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering that the logic of terrorism involves the use of violence to instill fear and to intimidate governments and societies, in order to accomplish specifi c political, religious, or ideological objectives, the eff ectiveness of suicidal terrorism as a tool to attain the desired results is self-evident. The suicidal terrorist acts follow a remarkably well thought out strategical logic; although most of the executors can be regarded as irrational or fanatical individuals, their leaders, who recruit and indoctrinate them, have an outstanding strategical intuition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Al-Adab / Al-ādāb is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Moving beyond the focus on violence against women and violence committed by women, this article interrogates violence countered by women. The article sheds new light on the gendered practices of counterinsurgency in northeast Nigeria, with critical attention to why women joined the civilian resistance to the Boko Haram insurgency and their complex role and agency as local security providers. Using the voices and lifeworlds of women who joined the Civilian Joint Task Force (yan gora) in Borno State as well as the Vigilante Group Nigeria and Hunters Association (kungiya marhaba) in Adamawa State, the article underscores the layered and gender-bending role of women as frontline fighters, knowledge brokers, state informants, and producers of vigilante technologies. The article finds that women counterinsurgents mobilized after Boko Haram shifted its strategy toward using female insurgents, especially as suicide bombers. Women joined the war against Boko Haram for complex reasons, including personal loss, revenge, family ties, community attachment, patriotism, and a collective yearning for normalcy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was designed to investigate the background, psychological characteristics and motivations of independent actors who carried out attacks in Israel. It also examined the antecedent factors that influenced their decision to carry out an attack, and their retrospective attitudes to the act. Forty-five Palestinians who had carried out attacks against Israeli targets on their own initiative were interviewed in prison about their background, motivations, circumstances and process of the attack. Thirty-nine of them were also interviewed by a clinical psychologist and took a battery of psychological tests. Twenty-six of these were diagnosed as suffering from one or more of the following: psychotic background, severe personality disorder, and suicidality. A considerable number of the participants described personal, family or social problems that influenced their decision to carry out the attack. Three dominant motives for carrying out an attack were identified: suicidality, a psychotic state, and an ideological national-religious motivation. The characteristics of the attack were influenced by the dominant type of motivation. The discussion compares the findings of this study with those of a study on suicide bombers and with studies on behavioral characteristics of independent actors in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can feminist epistemological methods contribute to the task of intelligence analysis? Feminist work widens the lens of what constitutes politics, enabling analysts to incorporate new variables and events into their analysis. In addition, feminist epistemology's emphasis on reflexivist methods can help to provide a '360-degree view' of problems by incorporating the insights of those who are the subject of analysis. Knowledge is co-created by considering how participants themselves attach meanings and labels to their actions. This approach helps to guard against researcher bias and aids researchers in identifying their blind spots. Feminist methods are also helpful when asking 'queer questions' where either the subject of an inquiry or the answer to a query might be poorly specified, ambiguous, or resistant to labeling. They are thus of utility when exploring 'mysteries' rather than puzzles, in the words of Gregory Treverton. This essay expands on these three arguments regarding the utility of feminist epistemological methods and finally provides a case study, showing how feminist epistemological methods are of particular utility in examining the phenomenon of female suicide bombers, including making predictions about this activity and describing the motivations of those who participate in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple suicide bombings in the town of Gwoza in northeastern Nigeria have resulted in a death toll of 32 people. The attacks, carried out by female suicide bombers, targeted a wedding, a hospital, and a funeral. While no group has claimed responsibility, the Boko Haram jihadist group is active in the area. Suicide bombings have become less frequent since 2014 when the army pushed militants out of controlled territory, but attacks still occur in rural areas. The recent attacks in Gwoza indicate a more coordinated and daring approach by the militants. The Nigerian government has heightened security measures in response to the threat of further attacks. In a separate incident, a West African court has found Nigeria guilty of violating the rights of protesters during the EndSARS rallies in 2020. Additionally, a mass trial in Niger state has resulted in the conviction of 125 individuals for being members of Boko Haram and terrorism-related offenses. Various other incidents of violence and abductions have occurred across different states in Nigeria. [Extracted from the article]

Despite the extensive information known about suicide bombings, widely-varying intentions have been used by many scholars to explain the religious motivations for the violence: these events are framed by participants as religious experiences, raising complex questions about the relationship between religious experience and violence. Recent studies use the vocabulary of religious studies—sacrifice, martyr, witness—to locate "cultures of violence" in a specific psychic structure, in a specific religion, or in religion in general; this paper compares three major studies that are representative of contemporary debate about religious experience. Ivan Strenski's approach offers the broadest view, grounding suicide bombings in specific Islamic shaping of religious experience by a (non-normative) view of self-sacrifice emboldened by notions of jihad. Gideon Aran reconstructs a much narrower frame, a mutual attachment by bombers and their enemies around motivations from the redemptive capacity of blood (spilling and collecting). Ruth Stein psychoanalyzes the mind of a specific suicide bomber, Mohammed Atta, locating a complex web of love and hate as a motivation. These studies, each in a different way, demonstrate just how elusive the intentions of bombers remain and the sheer range of frameworks that might illuminate the aims of individuals who engage in suicide bombings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequency of injuries secondary to terrorist attack explosion is globally increasing. Like any other country, our country experienced multiple suicide bombings in recent years. Otologic injuries may be observed after these kinds of attacks. Considering otologic complaints are well known medical results of explosion attacks, routine otologic evaluation in the first examining hospital—even in case of no relevant complaint- is crucial for establishing causal relation in following forensic medicine evaluation. In this study, 33 cases from 6 suicide bomber attacks in 4 different incidents that happened in Turkey were evaluated for otologic injuries. Two out of three patients were not evaluated for otologic injuries in their first hospital visit. It was considered that 8 cases had a loss of hearing and 9 cases had tympanic membrane rupture secondary to the explosion. Complaints such as hearing loss and tinnitus very often after a bomb attack, we saw that 22 of 33 included patients did not have an ear nose, and throat examination at the time of the incident. In this kind of attack, there can be various life-threatening injuries and therefore relatively less important evaluations such as ENT examination can often be overlooked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As suicide bombers during the Second Intifada of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian females reflected a sustained involvement in political activism dating back to the early-20th century. However, as suicide bombers, Palestinian females gained considerable notoriety in Western media discourse because of their gendered participation. This not only challenges the use of their female bodies for destructive, rather than reproductive, purposes but also long-held orientalist discourse propagating the alleged-oppression of non-Western females in historic and contemporary Western literature, including via the practice of veiling. Despite martyrdom videos contextually locating these females within political violence, their veiled appearance challenged orientalist discourse concerning their gendered participatory agency. Examining U.K. and U.S. broadcast news media, this article seeks to assess the presence of traditionally orientalist frameworks in Palestinian female suicide bombers' coverage and whether or not these contribute toward a de-legitimization of their political agency, via discourse surrounding representations of their allegedly oppressed female bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has attributed the motivations of suicide bombers to religious fervor, political engagement, and organizational strategic goals, among others. However, the processes underlying suicide bomber mobilization may also be related to primary and secondary socialization through family and peer network ties. To better understand the association between kin and peer ties and suicide bomber mobilization, I use a data set of 2923 individual fighter-level observations of combatants for the Islamic State. These data include individual demographic data and if a combatant volunteered to be a suicide bomber. Through these data, I assess ideational, material, and the social origins of suicide bomber mobilization. I find that a one unit increase in kin or peer network ties is positively associated with a combatant's odds of volunteering to be a suicide bomber. • Considers how socialization contributes to suicide bomber mobilization. • Develops a network theory to explain participation in political violence. • Provides novel data of Islamic State kin and peer ties. • Identifies relationship between kin (peer) ties and suicide terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve the speed of passenger screening while preserving the effective capability to detect more sophisticated threats, airport security imaging systems must be able to accurately characterize concealed body-worn objects. In addition to improving the passenger experience, this system capability will enhance airport security for the traveling public. This article presents a real-time, fully automatic algorithm for the wideband millimeter-wave (mm-wave) radar reconstruction of the nominal human body contours, even in the presence of an affixed weak dielectric object or when a portion of the body cross section is not captured by the imaging scanner. The algorithm extracts the main contours from a noisy collection of 3-D reconstructed reflectivity and approximates the nominal human body cross section via fitting a low-order angular Fourier series. This important step is essential for precise characterization of concealed body-worn explosives. A ranking algorithm is developed as a metric for the nominal body reconstruction accuracy. We verify the developed algorithm by applying it to the actual images of the high definition–advanced imaging technology (HD-AIT) system, a laboratory prototype mm-wave scanning system developed recently by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The reconstructed body contours may be used to estimate the electric permittivity of the concealed person-worn objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature argues that the militants and suicide bombers of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) come from relatively advantaged socioeconomic and educational backgrounds compared to the average Palestinian in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Analyzing 2,448 martyr biographies from Hamas's military wing and PIJ from 1992 to 2012, I argue that these militants reflect Palestinian labor divisions and educational enrollment rates. There is thus little to suggest that Palestinian Islamist militants are recruited from any particular socioeconomic stratum within the wider population. I demonstrate that, instead, kinship and geographic clusters are more significant variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Second Intifada of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, female-perpetrated suicide bombings emerged as a new proponent of political violence during this phase of Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Prior academic literature demonstrates the gendered nature of these acts—based upon wider debates concerning the male relationship with conflict—as key in predominantly Western print news media analyses of these female bombers' coverage. Examining the widely unexamined medium of broadcast news, this article addresses the extent to which BBC News and ITV News embrace the "Myth of Motherhood" to communicate the Palestinian female body's performative status. Via a postcolonial framework, analyses of applied natural ("Vacant Womb") and unnatural ("Deviant Womb") biological frameworks shall address whether constructions of Palestinian female suicide bombers' allegedly deviant femininity impact upon representations of their political agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An extensive body of literature examines how the media depicts female suicide bombers. However, there has been little systematic testing of these theories. I test common arguments about how female bombers are portrayed, relative to male bombers. I find mixed support for the notion that information on female bombers relies on gender stereotypes. I find robust evidence that the marital status of female bombers is more likely to be reported on than for their male counterparts, while other characteristics, such as education and occupation, are not. I discuss the incentives media outlets and armed groups have for reinforcing these stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are there so few female suicide bombers despite their tactical effectiveness? To explain the rarity of this phenomenon, I examine the tradeoffs that armed groups face when using female suicide bombers. While rigid gender norms make female bombers more effective because security personnel are less suspicious of them, gender inequality also drives down the demand for female suicide bombers. I posit that the tradeoffs of using female bombers induce a curvilinear relationship between women's status and the prevalence of female suicide bombers. Specifically, I argue that female bombers will be more common in countries with middling levels of gender equality than in highly equal or unequal societies. Using data on over 5,500 suicide attacks, from 1974 to 2016, I find support for this hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I begin by addressing stereotypes associated with the bodies of women in traditional south Asian societies. My focus is Sri Lanka and chronologically the civil war therein. While traditional societies such as the Sri Lankan have deified the reproductive body of the woman, extolling it in religion and celebrating it's sensuousness in poetry, these strictures changed drastically with the formation of the Illavar -- the women's brigade of the LTTE. The need of the hour was to enlist women-fighters for the cause of the imaginary homeland of Tamil Eelam. This move had to be successful not just through the arduous physical training undertaken by young women training to be cadres but sociologically there had to be acceptance for women forfeiting their roles as sacrificing wives and mothers. This societal acceptance is accomplished through discourse wherein reverence for the self-sacrificial role bestowed on women in traditional societies is now transferred to their duty as suicide bombers offering the ultimate sacrifice of their body as martyrdom performed for the cause of the imaginary motherland. I compare this with the poetry of women writing the self during wartime and show the aesthetic as the space where women could truly exercise autonomy, choice and resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding why and how individuals participate in militant organizations has been the focus of an increasing amount of scholarship. Traditionally, these studies focus at either the individual or organizational level of explanation. This article advances the discussion on individual participation in militant organizations by combining primary and secondary sources at both levels to explain how the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attracted individuals into its organization as either suicide bombers or frontline fighters. First, at the individual level, we analyze a primary source dataset of over 4,000 personnel files from foreign fighters who went to Syria to join ISIS between 2013 and 2014. Second, at the organizational level, we examine trends in Islamic State propaganda and messaging to see how the recruitment of individuals into the organization placed them on certain operational paths. Two specific takeaways emerge. First, foreign fighters in 2013–2014 volunteered to become suicide bombers with relatively less frequency than in past iterations of the conflict in Iraq and Syria. Second, fighters from Western countries and fighters from countries undergoing a civil war were especially less likely to volunteer for a suicide role. More broadly, this analytical essay makes a case for the value of looking inside an organization as well as at individuals to get a more complete picture about group-level behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian freedom fighters have struggled for years to attain the freedom we have today. Unfortunately many of these freedom fighters remain unsung to date. One such unlauded freedom fighter was Rani Velu Nachiyar. Born in the era where only men used to rule, she was skilled in handling weapons and martial arts. She was married to the prince of Sivagangai in in1746. In 1772, the British attacked her kingdom, killing her husband and forcing her to flee from her kingdom. But, this did not stop her and she planned to fight against the British to win her kingdom back. Her army commander Kuyili set herself on fire and jumped in British's ammunitions store to destroy every bit of it and became the first suicide bomber in Indian History. In 1780, she fought with the British and took the command in her hand once again. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suicide is an intentional actof a person causing one’s own death. Suicide bombing is the choice of an individual or organization member to embrace death for achievement. Suicide bombers are mostly from terrorist organization. It is a crime scene report wherein a normal citizen, a lorry driver in India triggered suicidal bombing in a money lending shop. Suicidal death with explosive by normal citizens is rare. The author, then Government forensic crime scene investigator had investigated the suicidal bombing scene wherein a lorry driver aged about 42 years committed suicide bombing in a money lending shop. It was not a terrorist attack,from any terrorist organization. The author examined the blasting site and identified the type of explosive used in this act. After the bombing, the bomber survived for a while and subsequently collapsed within a shop, a rental house.The dead body found on the floor, within the shop with injuries on abdomen with exposed viscera. The body was intact, nor blown to pieces as appeared in terrorist suicide attack. An improvised devise found attached in abdomen region and the chemical substance used was low power explosives, never used by the terrorists for the suicide attack.The author concluded with a finding that the local lorry driver had committed suicide bombing under stress, because of his inability to pay the lorry loan instalments for many months. It was an act of psychological stress rather than terrorist attack since the moneylender was safe, even in his close range of the bomber. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Growing research focusing on citizens' psychological reactions to terrorism finds that attacks perpetrated by individuals belonging to Muslim minorities increase negative attitudes toward immigrants as a whole. We argue that this empirical regularity might be explained by stereotyping, which produces immediate emotional reactions among people holding exogenously positive/neutral attitudes toward immigrants. Methods: We employ a quasi‐experimental before–after design based on the Manchester bombing of May 22, 2017. Results: Evidence is consistent with the stereotyping effect hypothesis as shown by the temporality of the effect on citizen's attitudes: the effect is indeed strong and significant in the first three days after the attacks for the more cosmopolitan citizens. After four to seven days, however, the effect disappears for every group. Conclusion: The study suggests that the impact of terrorism on public opinion is consistent with a stereotyping effect and therefore, although immediately strong, it lasts very little in time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Internal Security is the property of Police Academy in Szczytno and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)