Bombshell: The Many Faces Of Women Terrorists

Terrorism has a new—female—face. In Moscow in 2010, two women blew themselves up within minutes of each other on separate subway lines. In Baquba, Iraq, in 2005, a Belgian woman who had converted to Islam rammed a car filled with explosives into an American military convoy. In Jerusalem in 2001, a Palestinian woman sent a man with explosives strapped to his chest into a crowded café. In Ireland in 1990, a woman pretending to be pregnant tried to smuggle a bomb into Belfast Airport. In hotspots around the world women have been playing an increasingly central role in planning, supporting, and perpetrating acts of violence. Some women terrorists are true believers in their cause. Others are drugged, kidnapped, or coerced. Many have been raped and shamed. Often their motives are mixed: pride, peer pressure, veneration for a leader, rage at the humiliations they have endured. The result, as Mia Bloom shows in this important book, is a sinister new security threat. In Bombshell, Bloom explores women’s roles in terrorist movements in Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, Indonesia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Drawing on a wide range of sources—including interviews with women terrorists, websites, videos, pamphlets, and books—she provides a vivid and compelling portrait of the women who are recruited to kill.