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It is often said that in nature, the female of the species is far more deadly than the male.
Islam assigns a completely subordinate role to women, condemning them to various involuntary surgical procedures including clitorectomy; clothing them from head to foot and in most cases denying women anything more than a basic education. However, male oppression doesn't appear to make Muslim women any less deadly.
Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups routinely use female suicide bombers - the Associated Press reports US military figures that indicate at least 36 female suicide bombers attempted or carried out 32 attacks last year and a recent story out of Iraq is both chilling, if not truly mind-numbing.
In some of our newspapers, but very few, it was reported that Samira Ahmed Jassim, 51, was arrested by Iraqi police and suspected of organizing the rapes of more than 80 women. Her purpose in organizing the rapes was to later convince her victims that the only way to expunge their shame was by martyrdom - becoming suicide bombers and passing them on to terrorists who provided explosives. Of those "groomed" and trained in this manner, 28 went on to be suicide bombers.
The Times of London, in reporting this case, reflected that the allegations about organized rape had not been independently verified. Presumably, her confession to the Iraqi authorities and interrogators wasn't sufficient for the Times.
Had the Times cared to learn the truth, a few moment's research could have easily alleviated any journalistic concerns. Samira Ahmed Jassim, known as 'Um al-Mumenin', the mother of the believers, was shown in custody in the German newspaper Die Welt, whose staff also examined the videotape of her confession and seems to have found it compelling.
Melbourne's Sun-Herald newspaper reported on the incident; a right-leaning US website, Family Security Matters on February 5, 2009 cited the report and stated, correctly in our view, that the terrorist group with which Samira Jassim was associated was "weakly called an insurgent group." Ansar al-Sunnah, aka Jamaat Ansar al-Sunnah or Group of the Followers of Sunnah (faith) is a murderous proscribed Iraq-based affiliate of Al Qaeda. The report originated with Agence France-Presse, relayed from the Iraqi authorities, but the Melbourne paper attributed it to foreign correspondents in Baghdad.
It almost appears that somehow the usual suspects in this country believe that the words of the Iraqi authorities are not to be taken seriously, even when supported by videotaped evidence and well-documented claims that Jassim was an active member of Ansar al-Sunnah.
There is another case, which turned up not in the mainstream UK press but that doughty local journal, the Oldham Advertiser on February 4. Under the headline "Mum who urged terror on West," a doe-eyed young Muslim mother gained the dubious distinction of being the first person in the UK to be convicted of distributing or circulating a terrorist publication. This historic tome was an eight-page essay entitled The Call, described as containing theological, political and historical commentary, which mentioned 9/11 and the war on terror. It asked the reader that burning question: "Will you go to jihad?" and much like the classic British posters of the First World War calling for volunteers, the implied answer of "Yes!" was the only acceptable one.
The 28-year-old Shella Roma gave copies to her husband to hand out at the local mosque. Alas, this literary work was a victim of its own success: to increase volume distribution, she tried to have it printed professionally and an alert business called the police. Interestingly, it has taken a year for the case to come to court. The defense has stated that Mrs. Roma was in a poor state of health mentally; she supposedly suffered from a dissociative order and during earlier hearings had fainted in court.
Eventually, she pleaded guilty and admitted to being the prime mover in the case: her husband was cast as something of an innocent dupe. This "young mum" has been released on bail and will be sentenced in March. Our prediction is she will get a light sentence, no doubt in view of her disturbed psychological state - easily proven simply by reading her criminal text. You couldn't ask for a better Catch-22 - only a madman would call for jihad, therefore jihadists are insane and can defend themselves in court accordingly.
It would appear that fundamentalist Muslims have no problem with the second-class status of women and are perfectly prepared to use them for acts of terrorism. That's Women's Lib, Muslim-style! And we in the West sit back, ignore such incidents, and debate the role of women in combat!