Arrest, conviction of women terrorists on the rise globally

LAHORE: The recent arrest of an alleged Hyderabad-based female terrorist, Naureen Leghari, in Lahore has surely lent more credence to the fact that terrorism is no longer a mainly male affair in this part of the world too, and it is an eye-opener for people who doubt that militant outfits like the ISIS, al-Qaeda, Taliban, Boko Haram and al-Shabaab etc do not recruit and radicalise women to spread terror and accomplish their nefarious designs.

Naureen, who is a student of Jamshoro’s Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, had reportedly spent two months in Syria before returning to Lahore just a week ago.

The Pakistani security forces claimed they had foiled a “major” terror attack on Christians ahead of Easter in Lahore, after they killed a militant Tariq (Naureen Leghari’s husband) in the Punjab Housing Society at city’s Ghazi Road and had handcuffed the woman who had also reportedly fired at the forces during the siege of the compound she was living in.

For some, these women are terrorists, while for others; they are “Jihadists” fighting for a noble cause. And till this debate continues, terrorism is bound to galore and the role of females in terror networks will continue to grow.

One such case is that of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted in 2010 on seven counts of attempted murder and assault on US personnel. Aafia is currently serving her 86-year sentence in the US. Many Pakistanis believed that charges against Afia are concocted. She, according to them, was never involved in terrorism. Time and again calls were made for her release from US jail or at least her transfer as prisoner to Pakistan.

Research shows that the investigations, consequent arrests and convictions of women terrorists are on the rise globally.

A few more recent global examples in this context:

Quite recently, on March 24, 2017, after a man called Khalid Masood had orchestrated the London terror attack that had killed four people and injured 40, the British police had raided a flat belonging to Rohey Hydara, who used to live with Masood, who had mowed down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before entering the grounds of Parliament and killing police officer Keith Palmer.

The 39-year-old Rohey Hydara was resultantly arrested during the raid and probed.

Hydara had later poured scorn on her husband’s act of terror. The Daily Mail had reported: “A flat in the heart of the Olympic Village belonging to a woman who had previously lived with London terror attacker Khalid Masood was raided by officers tonight. Police were searching the flat - which housed teams from Benin, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Mali and Sudan during the 2012 Games - where a woman named locally as Rohey Hydara lived. She had lived with Masood in at least three separate addresses but it was unclear what their relationship was. Officers could be seen rifling through rooms on the first floor flat, although curtains in most of the windows were drawn”.

It was also in March 2017 that a 69-year-old Palestinian woman, Rasmea Yousef Odeh, was convicted by an Israeli military court for participating in a 1970 terrorist attack in Jerusalem that had claimed two lives and immigration fraud after lying about her past upon entering America and applying for citizenship.

The March 9, 2017 edition of a top Israeli newspaper The Haaretz had reported: “One of those bombings, that took place at a crowded Jerusalem supermarket on February 21, 1969, claimed the lives of two young students, Leon Kanner and Eddie Joffe, and injured nine others. A decade later, Odeh was released from prison as part of a prisoner exchange and she moved to Jordan. Fifteen years later, in 1995, Odeh immigrated to the United States. When she entered the country, she declared she had only lived in Jordan and – making no mention of her conviction and imprisonment for terrorism – said she had no criminal record. She repeated the same falsehoods when applying for US citizenship in 2004”.

The Haaretz had gone on to write: “Those declarations came back to haunt her in 2013, when she was arrested and charged with lying to the federal government. Her case went to trial in 2014, when she was convicted of immigration fraud, stripped of US citizenship and sentenced to 18 months in prison. In 2016, an appeals court sent her case back to the court that convicted her and ordered a new trial. Originally set for January 10, 2017, that trial is now scheduled to begin in May. During most of this process, she has remained free on bail”.

The October 8, 2016 of Indian NDTV had reported the conviction of a Belgian woman, Laura Passoni.

Laura was convicted on March 23, 2016 in Belgium of joining ISIS the day after members of the group struck the Brussels airport and metro. Her decision lost her custody of her children to her parents and was forbidden from contacting the baby’s imprisoned father.

In December 2016, Indonesian police had arrested three women implicated in a foiled plot to bomb the State Palace.

The Jakarta Post had written: “The local militants’ decision to use women to carry out the attack is in defiance of the policy of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria, which discourages extremists from using their wives to launch suicide attacks and instead mainly relies on children to carry out such missions. The director of the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, Sidney Jones, told The Jakarta Post that female extremists in Indonesia wanted to have a greater role in attacks because of their admiration of women carrying out terrorist attacks abroad, which they learned about from the internet”.

Europe finally woke up to the prospect of female terrorists last year:

Research shows that even Europe did not wake up early to the prospect of female terrorists, though countries like France and Belgium did come out of their slumber in September 2016, after four young women (Sarah, Ines, Amel and Ornella) were charged for being behind France ‘terrorist commando’ network.

According to France24, a 24-hour international news and current affairs television network in Paris, French prosecutors believed the four above-named women were charged with terrorism offences over a plot to attack a Paris train station.

The terror plan was thwarted after a car packed with gas cylinders was discovered on September 4, 2016 near the Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of the French capital.

In September 2015, Indian intelligence agencies had arrested an Indian woman (Afshan Jabeen) soon after she was deported from UAE for being allegedly involved in recruiting online for the terror outfit.

The history of female Jihadists:

Tracing the history of female Jihadists, “renowned French media house France24 had stated: “Since the September 11, 2001, attacks put a spotlight on global Jihadism, women have featured in Jihadist circles in largely secondary roles, mainly as companions or propagandists. Unlike several nationalist movements – such as the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers and Kurdish ‘takfiri Salafist’ groups have primarily viewed women as supporters, not actors, in the global Jihad”.

The Paris-based media house had added: “Prominent female Jihadists have included Malika El Aroud, a Belgian national of Moroccan origin who was married to a Jihadist who killed Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban resistance hero, Ahmad Shah Massoud, on September 9, 2001. She later married Moez Garsalloui, a well-known figure linked to several French Jihadists, who was killed in a 2012 US drone strike in Pakistan. But Aroud and al Qaeda’s other self-styled “female warriors” were not combatants for the cause. As wives, widows or sisters of Islamist militants, the women mostly served as incubators for a next generation of Jihadists”.

France24 had further maintained: “For the African outposts of global Jihad, groups such as Nigeria-based Boko Haram and Somalia-based al Shabaab have occasionally used females – particularly girls – mostly because females do not invite the same level of scrutiny by security services as their male counterparts”.