St-Denis female suicide bomber is not the first, and will not be the last

The news that one of the terrorists cornered in St-Denis was a woman who apparently blew herself up as police closed in will shock. However, she is far from being the first female suicide bomber.



There have been female terrorist suicide attackers for decades. They were dispatched by secular, leftist organisations in the 1980s in Lebanon, and by ethno-separatist groups such as the Kurdish PKK and the Tamil LTTE in Sri Lanka in the 1990s. A Tamil female suicide bomber assassinated the Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1991.

In 2000, Chechen groups began launching suicide attacks by women. So-called “black widows” – many were indeed the wives of men who had died in the conflict with Russian forces – were involved in a series of spectacular terrorist actions. These have continued.

Between 2002 and 2005, women also took part in a wave of suicide attacks launched by Palestinian militant groups against Israeli targets.

The central command of al-Qaida, which has been shouldered out of its former position of pre-eminence among Islamist militant organisations by Islamic State, avoided the use of women as suicide attackers on its high-profile spectacular operations. However, affiliated groups have deployed them.

In 2005, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian former street thug turned militant who led the al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq, sent four suicide bombers including a woman to attack weddings in luxury hotels in Amman, the capital of his homeland.

The attacks killed 60 people and prompted outrage in Jordan (and apparently deep concern among the al-Qaida high command). A filmed confession by the woman, who was detained when she failed to detonate her device, contributed to a growing wave of revulsion towards al-Qaida in the region and beyond which had significant strategic consequences for the group.

That same year, the first-known European woman, a Belgian married to an Algerian-born Islamist, died in a bombing targeting a US convoy in Iraq. Affiliates elsewhere, such as in central Asia and the horn of Africa, went on to use, albeit sparingly, female suicide attackers. They have remained rare however, particularly in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The most intensive user of female attackers has been the Nigerian-based group Boko Haram, the leader of which swore allegiance to Isis earlier this year. Just over two months ago four female suicide bombers killed dozens of people at mosques in north-east Nigeria. They were the latest in a wave of women sent against civilian targets in the area. Dozens of women have been used as bombers by the group over the past eight months. Some were children, as young as 10 years old.

Suicide bombers are a choice by an organisation – not necessarily a cheap one. It requires significant investment to psychologically condition suicide bombers, equip them and to maintain them at the pitch of commitment necessary for them to carry out their mission. Al-Qaida, Isis and groups like Hamas have set up entire infrastructures involving special accommodation, hand-picked commanders and even better food to groom their bombers who, even if they are usually volunteers, need careful handling.

The advantage of using female suicide bombers for an organisation can be simply tactical – they can avoid suspicion more easily, or can pose as a one half of a couple – or strategic.

Terrorists aim to spin out media coverage as long as possible. They know now that after the initial attack will come a hunt, and then, probably, a last stand. Their aim all along is to shock, awe, terrorise, and to attract as much attention as possible. Using women is one very effective way of achieving all these objectives.