News analysis
Rise of female militants poses challenge for war on terror
Women have been taking on more dominant roles in extremist groups, say analysts
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Police officers outside a church in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta on Wednesday, during a security sweep of the building ahead of Good Friday and Easter. The heightened security comes after a suicide bombing at a cathedral in Makassar city on Indonesia's Sulawesi island on March 28 that was carried out by a married couple.
PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Within a week, Indonesia was rocked by two separate terror attacks in which the perpetrators were women.
On March 28, when Christians were observing Palm Sunday, a burqa-clad woman and her husband rode their motorcycle to a cathedral in Makassar city, South Sulawesi, and blew themselves up with pressure-cooker bombs, wounding 20 people.
Three days later, a 25-year-old woman entered the Indonesian National Police Headquarters in the capital, Jakarta, and pointed a gun at police officers who then shot her dead.
Police said the couple were from Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a local extremist group which had pledged allegiance to international terror network Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The woman in Jakarta was a lone-wolf attacker.
The incidents not only showed that terrorism remains a threat in the Muslim-majority country of 270 million people, but have also rekindled debates on the rise of female militancy and the failure of the authorities to counter its growth.
Terror analysts told The Straits Times that women have been taking on more dominant roles in extremist groups, and not as mere sympathisers or supporters of the men in their lives. In fact, they did not rule out the possibility of terror outfits being led by women in future.
According to data by the Jakarta-based think-tank, the Centre for Radicalism and Deradicalisation Studies (Pakar), there have been a dozen planned and actual attacks by female militants since 2016, when Dian Yulia Novi plotted to blow herself up with a rice-cooker bomb in front of the presidential palace in Jakarta.
But the church bombings in Surabaya, East Java, in May 2018 marked the start of women successfully taking on combat roles in Indonesia.
Since then, there has been a large push online via chats on platforms like Telegram for women to take up arms and a strong demand for women to take up more significant roles in terror networks, said Ms Amalina Abdul Nasir, a research analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
"Women are rallying one another online to 'spill blood in the cause of Allah'. This is not just happening from the bottom up," she told ST.
ISIS has positioned women as equally important as men and pushed them into violent terror acts, from armed combat to suicide missions.
While women were previously portrayed as nurturers, the ISIS narrative has increasingly shifted to women as warriors, with pictures of female militants carrying rifles and ammunition being used in its propaganda materials, Ms Amalina said.
Women militants possess several tactical and strategic advantages. They are less suspicious as they are not expected to commit violence. They are also able to hide weapons or bombs underneath their clothing, analysts say.
In fact, they can be more zealous than men, having broken free from traditional gender roles, said Mr Al Chaidar, a terrorism observer from the University of Malikussaleh in Aceh. "Motivated by a shortcut to heaven, they can be more militant and firmer."
He said that terror networks with female leaders have yet to surface, but such a possibility remains. This will propel more attacks by women.
Mr Chaidar, who has chatted with some female radicals on Telegram, said: "They are assertive. They tell me 'you are a man, you ought to be a brave leader. Yet, all you do is write books'."
Analysts and civil society organisations say the counter-terrorism sector lacks female officers who make strategic decisions on deradicalisation measures specific to women. For instance, female psychologists were introduced into Indonesia's deradicalisation programme only in 2019, to counsel women involved in terror acts.
Indonesia's National Counter Terrorism Agency, which formulates policies and strategies, is also dominated by men.
Ms Amalina said: "This can be due to factors like longstanding culture, weak leadership and capacity in understanding the rising threat of extremism, so change may take a while to happen from within."
Attacks are expected to continue as long as the government does not keep a lid on them, analysts say.
Women militants possess several tactical and strategic advantages. They are less suspicious as they are not expected to commit violence. They are also able to hide weapons or bombs underneath their clothing, analysts say.
In fact, they can be more zealous than men, having broken free from traditional gender roles, said Mr Al Chaidar, a terrorism observer from the University of Malikussaleh in Aceh. "Motivated by a shortcut to heaven, they can be more militant and firmer."
Since its defeat a few years ago, ISIS has largely gone underground. But in Indonesia, its ideology thrives and sympathisers are aplenty. Pakar's senior researcher Muh Taufiqurrohman told ST: "Even if ISIS is dead, the attacks will continue."
This, even with limited money and capabilities.
Terror groups such as the JAD do not have deep pockets or an army of militants with proper combat skills. In the recent cases, for instance, only the attackers died.
The JAD members were trained in swimming and shooting, but not in using assault rifles such as the AK-47 or M-16, said Mr Taufiqurrohman.
"They don't have proper weapons. They only practised with air guns to shoot birds," he said.
However, they continued to risk their lives by taking on strong targets whom they considered enemies, including non-Muslims, the police, minority sects and even the Chinese, he added.
"It doesn't matter if they are successful or not, as long as they have carried out the amaliyah," he said, referring to the term that extremists use to refer to terror attacks. "They want to die as martyrs and go to heaven."
