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This Week in AsiaSociety

From Sri Lanka to Indonesia, more mothers are becoming suicide bombers – and killing their children too

  • The deadly new phenomenon sees women radicalised by IS ideology taking their children’s lives and their own in pursuit of martyrdom
  • Experts say the rise in the radicalisation of married couples is endangering entire families

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Indonesian militant Dian Yulia Novi is flanked by her husband Nur Solihin and her recruiter Tutin as face court in Jakarta in 2017. Photo: AP
Amy Chew

As night fell on blood-soaked Sri Lanka following the carnage of Easter Sunday last month, police knocked on a door in an upscale neighbourhood – the home of two of the suicide bombers.

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They were greeted by Fatima Ibrahim, the pregnant wife of bomber Ilham Ibrahim. On seeing the police, she ran inside and detonated an explosive device, killing herself, her unborn child and her three sons aged five, four and nine months. Three police officers also died in the blast.
In a similar case in March, anti-terror police arrested a suspected pro-Islamic State (IS) bomb-maker, Abu Hamzah, in Indonesia. When they went to his home to arrest his wife, Solimah, who had helped him make the bombs, she blew herself up, killing her two-year-old child.

From Sri Lanka to Indonesia, a deadly new phenomenon is emerging – women, radicalised by IS ideology, are killing themselves and their children in their pursuit of martyrdom.

Firefighters trying to put out a fire after a suicide bombing in Surabaya in May 2018. Photo: AFP
Firefighters trying to put out a fire after a suicide bombing in Surabaya in May 2018. Photo: AFP
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Female suicide bombers have always featured in the annals of jihadism, going back to the Chechen Islamists in Russia known as Black Widows, but filicide by female radicals brings a dangerous new dimension to terrorism.

“We did not have this in al-Qaeda,” said Sofyan Tsauri, former member of al-Qaeda Southeast Asia. “In Islam, jihad for a woman is to take care of the household, nurturing and educating the children, not taking up arms.”

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