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Palestinian Moms Becoming Martyrs

[TIME] Tim McGirk - Since 2002, 88 Palestinian women have attempted suicide bombings, though just eight have been successful. Though there were just six suicide attacks against Israelis in 2006, two were carried out by women. "There's a growing involvement of Palestinian women in terrorism, everything from scouting targets and smuggling guns and explosives to becoming suicide bombers," says Anat Berko, an Israeli counterterrorism expert at the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya. Palestinian women suicide bombers are older and better schooled than their male counterparts. Whereas the men are usually in their late teens and early 20s with scant education, studies carried out on 67 women recruited to become suicide bombers from 2002 to 2005 found that 33% were college graduates and an additional 39% had finished high school. Some women suicide bombers believe that in paradise they will become queens, while others are told by recruiters that they will become the fairest of the 72 virgins that await each jihad warrior.
2007-05-11 01:00:00
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