Harvard terrorism expert Jessica Stern thinks profiling is inadequate to catch adaptive terrorists, including a new source of jihadist recruits: women. A point well-taken, although profiling and other blunt instruments will have to do until we get more human intelligence into place, a process that will take months and years.
Terrorists seek out vulnerabilities in the enemy government's countermeasures. When metal detectors were installed at airports, terrorists found other ways to attack planes. When governments began protecting their embassies with concrete barriers, terrorists turned to larger explosives. Profiling men exclusively, and also focusing so tightly on countries known to harbor terrorists, are significant loopholes that have not been closed despite the FBI's recognition that al-Qaida has begun recruiting women, and despite the discovery last spring that a female scientist trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology may have been providing logistical support to al-Qaida.Posted by Alan at December 24, 2003 12:37 AMAlthough women represent a fraction of terrorists worldwide, it is naive to assume they're not recruited to violent extremist groups. Women are responsible for approximately one-third of the suicide attacks perpetrated by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, and two-thirds of those by the Kurdistan Workers' Party. Women have founded and led terrorist groups, hijacked planes, served on all-female tank units, blown up buildings and assassinated national leaders. What is new is that women are participating in attacks on behalf of organizations that promote Islamist causes.
The lack of scrutiny of women entering the United States and the broadly held -- and correct -- view that women are less prone to violence are likely to cause al-Qaida to turn increasingly to women and other recruits who don't fit the standard profile. According to intelligence assessments cited in the press, the al-Qaida movement is seeking recruits all over the world -- in Western prisons and inner cities, among Hispanic-Americans and among French converts to Islam. Through Internet communications, it is urging individuals to create their own cells and carry out their own strikes, without necessarily joining existing militant organizations. It is also recruiting women.
via the Houston Chronicle