It seems the more I read the angrier I become. Not a good sign.
Here is yet another article from an overseas paper on the subject.
London Times
September 3, 2004
Black Widow Suicide Bombers Are Deadliest Chechen Weapon
By Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor
WHEN confirmation came that the hostage takers included women, the Russian authorities feared the worst.
Over the past four years so-called “black widows”, Chechen suicide bombers, have become the most lethal weapon in the arsenal of the separatist movement, which increasingly employs terrorist tactics in its independence struggle. The black widows also known as “shahidas” (the Arabic for female martyrs) are women whose husbands or close male relatives have been killed over the past decade of conflict in Chechnya.
They are thought to be recruited by a woman known as “Fatima”. She answers directly to Shamil Basayev, the most powerful and ruthless Chechen warlord, who is said to have trained 50 women to become human bombs. Black widows are blamed for the two Russian airline crashes last week that killed 90 people and a Moscow metro station bombing that killed 10.
Others are said to be at large in Moscow where their photographs have been circulated by the police.
Previously they took part in Moscow’s Dubrovka theatre siege two years ago, when 129 people were killed in a failed rescue attempt by the Russian authorities. Since then they have blown themselves up on crowded metro carriages, at a pop concert and outside Moscow’s National Hotel.
Abu Walid, a Saudi militant fighting alongside the Chechen rebels, earlier this year spoke to al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based television station, about the women’s role.
“These women, particularly the wives of Mujahidin who are martyred, are being threatened in their homes,” he said.
“Their honour and everything are being threatened . . . They do not accept being humiliated and living under occupation.
“They say that they want to serve the cause of almighty God and avenge the death of their husbands and persecuted people.”
A very different version was given by Zarema Muzhikhoyeva, a “black widow” who was disarmed by police before she could detonate her bomb.
She said that her husband was killed in the war while she was pregnant. She claimed that she was then held as a “virtual slave” by the rebels who told her that it was her religious duty to carry out a suicide attack against a busy cafe on Moscow’s main Tverskaya Street.
She received her final instructions from a woman called “Lyuba”, who drugged her before sending her on her failed mission.