The negotiations were deadlocked although Husain — also known as Abu Hamzah, Solimah’s husband — was trying to persuade his wife, who was determined to conduct the suicide bombing, to surrender peacefully.

A day after, following Husain’s interrogation, counterterrorism force Densus 88 arrested several suspects in the province in a case related to a terrorist network. One was a woman believed to be Husain’s second wife and accomplice in his bombings plan.

According to interviews with a local cleric, Husain returned to Sibolga last year from somewhere in Java. His relatives said he was mostly secretive. The cleric also said previously Solimah was known to wear a burqa but when they returned, Solimah was wearing a simple hijab, raising questions whether she was the same woman. Husain worked as a repairman, helping residents with electrical repairs. However, he and his wife rarely socialized with the community and he never attended Friday prayers at the neighborhood mosque.

According to the cleric who helped in the negotiation process between Solimah and the police, residents knew Husain adhered to a different understanding of Islam but did not perceive him to be someone who was part of a terrorist group.

Husain’s relatives at the scene of the incident included his uncle Naim, who was seriously injured by a bomb thrown by Husain’s wife when the police and Naim searched Husain’s house.

Raising concerns about the child’s safety, the local cleric attempted to persuade Husain’s wife and her 2-year-old son to surrender.

According to him, “She [Solimah] wanted to die with her child, but I could not force myself to go into the house because the police thought there were still explosives in the house”.

IS’ involvement of women as active combatants is a rational strategy.

Our current research about children’s involvement in radicalization and terrorist acts confirms patterns related to the involvement of women, as mothers, in the radicalization of their children.

Our findings in Surabaya, East Java, the site of last year’s suicide bombing involving families, shows women are active in radical groups, involved in planning and help their husbands in the production of explosives and bomb-making. Moreover, most women involved in familial terrorist cells act as an early warning system, monitoring their environment and deceiving surveillance. Women are no longer passive actors, as previously believed.

The rise of the Islamic State (IS) group might have led to an increasingly important role for women. Indeed, the terrorist organization encourages women to engage in suicide bombings and the killing of law enforcers — their priority targets.

The IS’ involvement of women as active combatants is a rational strategy. In 2005, an al-Qaeda member in Iraq, Muriel Dagauque, led a suicide bombing act against an American military convoy on the outskirts of Baghdad. In the same year, Sajida Rishawi was involved in the Amman bombings in Jordan. She was captured by Jordan security forces while her husband, a senior aid to Zarqawi, then one of the organization’s leaders, succeeded in leading a suicide bombing in a hotel targeted by al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed in both cases that women were perpetrators. Afterward, Zarqawi had begun to rely more on women. This trend was apparent under the IS leadership of al-Baghdadi and is manifesting nowadays within IS-related terrorist groups in Indonesia.

Our findings show that, in Indonesia, this modus operandi is implemented within a relationship or religious-commitment between a man and a woman. This trend is called pengantin (bride, a term for suicide bombers). Recruiting “brides” or partners in suicide bombing modifies the collective culture common in Indonesian societies. If this pengantin can link a couple, it also can link a group, a friend, anytime and anywhere that they wish to conduct a bombing.

This path was illustrated in May 2017 by terrorists at the Kampung Melayu bus terminal, East Jakarta, who waited for a friend to join them to carry out the suicide bombings, as they apparently had doubts about committing the crime by themselves.

For radicalized women, we can see the following pattern: A woman wants to find a man who can help her to accomplish terrorist acts. She will then formalize her relationship with the man with a religious commitment among them, known as jihad-nikkah (marriage for jihad purposes).

Once such a commitment is declared, it will be maintained whatever the cost and the couple will carry out a violent act together.

We can see this trend rising in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, where more terrorist acts and attacks include women involved as pengantin. Most of the women whose husbands are terror inmates are beyond the reach of the government and law enforcers, and have continued to spread their radical ideology. Most women involved in terrorist groups tend to spread their radical doctrine to other women, and are still recruiting others.

The government needs to act against the continuity of women spreading extremist teachings and their radicalization of children. Antiterrorism stakeholders must therefore develop a counter narrative and increase surveillance on women and children who might be connected to terrorist organizations.

_____________________

Ulta Levenia is a researcher from the Center for Terrorism and Radicalism Studies, Police Science Studies, National Police. Alban Sciascia is director of Semar Sentinel Pte Ltd., a consultancy. Both are writers for Galatea Think Tank. The views expressed above are their own.

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