From suicide bombers to positions of authority – the changing role of women in jihadi groups

The U.S. State Department has renewed its offer of up to $5 million for information on Khadra Essa, a Somali-born Dutch citizen it identifies as the chief sharia instructor of an all-female Islamic State combat unit formed in Raqqa in 2016. The notice alleges she trained fighters in weapons and explosives, taught ideology justifying suicide attacks, and enforced sharia punishments against women; a separate notice seeks two American children allegedly taken by Essa after their mother's death in 2019.

Research cited alongside the bounty traces a longer arc: women in jihadi movements moved from being used almost exclusively as suicide bombers, as in Boko Haram's hundreds of female attackers between 2011 and 2017, toward formal roles training, recruiting and disciplining other members. Groups including al-Qaida and al-Shabaab eventually expanded women's functions well beyond what earlier ideological writings, like a 2009 letter from Umayma al-Zawahiri, had prescribed.

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