Terrorists, Female

Female terrorism is the threat or use of force against civilians in order to create a climate of fear and advance a political agenda. Political violence targeting noncombatant populations occurs in civil wars, revolutionary wars, nationalistic wars, armed resistance, guerrilla warfare, and peasant wars. Terrorism is described as a form of “asymmetric warfare.” Guerrilla organizations employ terrorist tactics but limit the targets of their attacks to military and government personnel.

In recent years, female terrorism has become synonymous with civilian-directed suicide attacks conducted by women. This terrorism-suicide bombing linkage obfuscates the fact that most female terrorism has involved women and girls witnessing or directly participating in terrorist acts such as torture, murder, kidnapping, hijacking, rape, physical/psychological deprivation, destruction of community infrastructure (e.g., cropland, water systems, roadways, ...