Published: Dec 1, 2010 22:48 Updated: Dec 1, 2010 22:48
JEDDAH: The role of Saudi women in Al-Qaeda is, apparently, marginal; only 15 women have been established to have links with the terrorist organization.
The tasks of women terrorists in the earlier days were confined to assisting in logistic matters such as helping wanted militants travel without attracting police attention in addition to offering moral support to them. Gradually some of them turned to terror recruiters, financiers and even a media relations officer like Bint Najd, who distributed terror propaganda online.
Al-Qaeda started recruiting women in the Kingdom in 2004. The first known female terrorist was the wife of the Kingdom’s Al-Qaeda chief Saleh Al-Oufi, who was killed in 2005.
Many terror activists donned women's clothes and moved in women’s company to cross police checkpoints undetected. Ali bin Abdul Rahman Al-Ghamdi, one of the 19 Al-Qaeda men wanted by the Interior Ministry in the past, used to travel between Madinah and Jeddah wearing abaya and in the company of women before he surrendered to Assistant Minister of Interior for Security Affairs Prince Muhammad bin Naif in 2003. His Moroccan wife was also with him.
Wives of militants used to accompany their husbands and help them go underground. Al-Oufi's wife hid his three children in a relative's house in Madinah after Al-Oufi's name figured in the ministry’s list of wanted men published in 2003. She was caught in July 2004 when police raided a house in King Fahd district in Riyadh. Isa bin Saud Al-Oushi and Muejib Abu Ras Al-Dossary were killed in a police encounter in which three other militants were injured. It was also reported that police recovered the decapitated head of kidnapped American John Marshall from a cold storage within that house. Authorities also seized weapons from the house.
Al-Oufi's wife and three children were released by order of Interior Minister Prince Naif and sent to her brother before her husband was killed in a confrontation in 2005.
Wafa Al-Shehri is another notable Saudi female terrorist. She is wife of Saeed Al-Shehri, the second in command of Al-Qaeda in Yemen. Her association with Al-Qaeda started with her marriage to Abdul Rahman Al-Ghamdi, who was killed in a clash with police in Taif in 2004. Later, Wafa married former Guantanamo detainee Al-Shehri after fleeing to Yemen.
Another Saudi woman in Al-Qaeda is Haila Al-Qusayyer, 47, the terror financier referred to by fellow militants as Madame Al-Qaeda and Umm Al-Rabab. Al-Qusayyer had been wife to two Al-Qaeda militants — Abdul Kareem Al-Homaid and Muhammad Suleiman Al-Wakeel.
Al-Wakeel was killed in a security operation following a botched attempt against an Interior Ministry building in 2004.
Saeed Al-Shehri reportedly threatened to make several attacks and kidnaps in order to force the authorities to release Al-Qusayyer, who was captured by Saudi forces from the house of another wanted militant in Al-Khobaitiah district of Buraidah, Qassim province.
Al-Shehri, who planned to make Al-Qusayyer his second wife, sent two militants, Yusuf Al-Shehri and Raed Al-Harbi, from Yemen to Buraidah to smuggle her to Yemen in October 2009. Both militants met their end at a checkpoint in Jazan.
Al-Qusayyer was noted for her fundraising skills, often collecting money from wealthy Saudis on the pretext of raising money for orphans and widows.
Bint Najd was the media chief of Al-Qaeda in the Kingdom. She operated more than 800 online clubs and blogs to promote the extremist ideology and carried pseudonyms such as Al-Asad Al-Muhajir (The Migrant Lion), Al-Ghariba (The Exotic), Bint Najd Al-Habibah (Najd's Beloved Daughter) and Al-Najm Al-Satie (The Glowing Star).
She uploaded the extremist websites with audio and video recordings and official statements of Al-Qaeda.
Abdul Munim Al-Mushawweh, director of the online Al-Sakeenah (Tranquility) Campaign against virulent deviant preaching that has been credited for reducing the online presence of extremism in the Kingdom, said he used to debate with the advocates of extremist ideologies, including Bint Najd, but she never listened to his advice and was eventually arrested.
