by Mia Bloom
The last straw occurred during the summer of 2002. Russian soldiers stormed the Ganiyev house yet again and arrested the youngest son and two of the girls, including Fatima, during yet another zachistka operation. They tried to take fourteen-year-old Milana as well, but her mother managed to stop them. The girls’ arrest coincided with a new special order, number 12/309, issued by the Russian Duma and known as Operation Fatima. This law instructed the police to detain any women wearing traditional Muslim headscarves (hijab) and to strip-search them at military checkpoints. Under Operation Fatima women were routinely detained and, while in detention, were tortured and raped and subjected to other kinds of sexual abuse to make them “confess” to crimes such as smuggling weapons.44
The two girls were gone for three and a half days before their father secured their release by paying the Russian soldiers a bribe of $1,000. When they finally came home, however, they were changed. Both had been beaten, subjected to torture by electric shock, and possibly raped. After they returned home they said, “We are now in shame. We cannot live like this.”45 For days Fatima sat without speaking a word. By her culture’s standards she was an old maid, already twenty-six, and now ruined for marriage if her virginity was not intact. The war was killing her friends and potential suitors. Her little sister, Milana, had just turned fifteen and Fatima knew that she would be subjected to the same treatment in the next mopping-up operation. Neither she nor their mother would be able to protect her.
That September a strange woman came to visit the girls. It is unclear whether it was Zura Barayeva (one of Arbi’s widows), or another woman recruiter of suicide bombers, Kurbika Zinabdiyeva; both allegedly recruited shahidat for the Dubrovka operation. Whichever of the women it actually was, she had been invited there by the girls’ surviving older brother, Rustam (Aslan), a well-known jihadi fighter in Shamil Basayev’s inner circle, who had promised two of his sisters as suicide bombers for the Chechen cause. Rustam was allegedly paid $1,500 per sister. He had recruited half a dozen women for Basayev’s suicide bombing unit, the Riyadus-Salikheen (RAS, the reconnaissance and sabotage unit of the Chechen martyrs). Rustam’s infamous protégées exploded at Dubrovka, at the Wings rock concert at Tushino Airfield, and at the Mozdok Airbase in North Ossetia. At Tushino, Zulihan Elihadžieva exploded along with another girl, killing more than a dozen people; she was alleged to have been pregnant by her half brother Žaga (Danilahan Elihadžiev). Rustam himself had trained the Mozdok bombers, Lidya Khaldikhoroyeva and Zarema Muzhakhoyeva, before he was arrested and sentenced to life in Vladikavkaz prison in March 2005. He admitted that his role was to drive the girls to North Ossetia, pretending that they were his wives and then to drop them off at a bus stop. He did this with each of the girls, first with Zarema Muzhakhoyeva and then with Lidya Khaldikhoroyeva. Rustam Ganiyev said that he only learned from the television that civilians, including many women, had died in the bus attack; the toll was nineteen dead and twenty-four wounded.46
Fatima and Khadizhat were sent to a rebel camp. They and the other girls spent their days training and reading the Qur’an while being regaled with stories of Khava Barayeva’s heroic exploits. Diligent students, Fatima and Khadizhat wrote down everything they learned in their exercise books, which were later found after an operation against the rebel base. In their notes they wrote that the shahida goes to heaven after her death, where she is transformed into one of the houris, the beautiful virgins who serve Allah’s warriors in paradise. According to the girls’ notes, the perfume of heavenly flowers and eternal paradise were the shahida’s reward.
The process of indoctrination was intense and intimidating. Once young women entered the rebels’ camp, there was no way out. If you fail to carry out your mission, they were repeatedly told, we will kill your parents, we will kill your children. It was very taxing psychologically.47 Another recruit reported that she was given in marriage to a jihadi who told her that as she was his gift, he could give her to his friends and colleagues. After she was passed around, and had fainted, she woke up in a strange safe house with several other women being trained for a jihadi mission. One girl refused and the instructors reported that she had been eviscerated and chopped up into several pieces, which were tossed into the trash. If any of the other girls refused to carry out their mission, a similar fate awaited them.
Fatima and Khadizhat had been gone for more than a month and a half when their parents found out that their daughters had been among the terrorists at the theater. Across Chechnya, horrified families recognized the faces of their dead daughters and sisters when the news stations aired the footage from the Dubrovka attack.
Rustam’s culpability came to light in the months after the Moscow theater siege, when the remaining Ganiyev daughter allegedly sought asylum from the Russian police. In August, Raisa (Reshat) Ganiyeva begged the FSB to provide her a safe haven because Rustam had promised her for one of the four new suicide operations Shamil Basayev was planning. According to the Russian government, she turned herself in of her own volition, but during a meeting with Sophie Shihab of Le Monde, Raisa managed to whisper in the journalist’s ear, “They arrested me …”48 The FSB relocated Raisa to a safe house in Khankala, east of Grozny, where she remained under police protection for a year and then disappeared altogether.
COERCION AND REVENGE
From the beginning of the second war in Chechnya, women became increasingly involved in the fight. Even the smallest fighting units had female health-aid workers, whom the men respectfully called “sisters.”49 Slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya met dozens of women in Chechnya ready to embark upon suicide missions for the cause. She chronicled Russian human rights abuses in Chechnya in several of her articles and books, including A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya and A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. Politkovskaya painted a picture of a brutal war in which thousands of innocent citizens were tortured, abducted, or killed at the hands of Chechen or federal authorities. Politkovskaya herself was tortured in Chechnya for three days and her children threatened.50 Flown in from the west coast to help negotiate the end of the Dubrovka crisis, she stated that the nineteen women at the siege were “real heroines” to most Chechens, even though they were likely forced into their actions by men. Polish journalist Andrzej Zaucha believed that the women were at Dubrovka of their own free will but that many had very personal motives for being there. Politkovskaya concurred that a major motive for the women was to avenge the deaths of their family members. Abu Walid, a Saudi who was reportedly one of the rebel commanders, told Al Jazeera that the women, particularly the wives of the mujahideen who were martyred, were menaced by Russian soldiers who threatened their honor in their own homes. The women would not accept being humiliated and living under the occupation. They wanted to serve the cause of God and avenge their husbands and sons.51
This desire for revenge and the likelihood of coercion were not mutually exclusive. Many Chechen women were outraged by the war and did lose husbands, sons, and brothers. But Russian behavior toward Chechen women during their mopping-up operations was an additional motivating factor. In Chechen society, men are the head of the household; nearly all issues are decided by them. A Chechen woman lives under the guardianship of her relatives until she marries, when she becomes her husband’s responsibility. The woman represents the family’s honor, and when an injustice is done to her, it can often be washed off only by spilling blood.52 Traditionally, the wronged family takes revenge only against the individual(s) involved in the original crime or insult. However, with the many years of war and the increased trauma among Chechen civilians, a generalized revenge directed toward all Russians became increasingly acceptable.53 In this extreme situation, all Russians were blamed for the actions of their soldiers.
According to Chechen sources, many of the women were victims of rape, which meant that they could never marry or have children. The prospect was so bleak that many concluded that they might as well die.54 In one documented case, Russian federal
forces detained Aset (not her real name) at a checkpoint in June 2003 and accused her of being a suicide bomber. According to relatives, during her interrogation she was chained to a bed and gang-raped every night. When she was released six days later, she was barely able to walk or stand.55 According to one Chechen woman who abandoned her suicide mission at the last minute, if you sacrificed your life in the name of Allah and killed some infidels, you would go straight to heaven regardless of your previous sins.56
Anna Politkovskaya argued that the women in Chechnya were “zombified” by their sorrow and grief. Writing in Moscow’s Zhizn magazine, Svetlana Makunina endorsed the commonly held Russian view that the women terrorists had all been turned into zombies. They did not actually want to be involved in suicide attacks. They were drugged, raped, and forced. Another journalist, Maria Zhirkova, explained how difficult it was for anyone to understand the position of Chechen women in society. Rape was such a big issue. If a woman was raped and it was photographed or filmed, she could be blackmailed into doing anything because the rape was a disgrace to her entire family.57
Wartime rape is a relatively common device used against the women of the other side. However, unlike cases in Darfur, Sierra Leone, and Bosnia, the experience of rape in Chechnya occurred in two very different ways: one, young women were raped by Russian soldiers during detention and as part of the campaign to ethnically cleanse certain areas, and two, women were kidnapped and raped by Chechen fighters. These same-side rapes were occasionally videotaped to make it impossible for the victims to return to their families. Under this kind of pressure, martyrdom seemed like a blessing.58
Women sent off for marriage to a neighboring village occasionally found themselves kidnapped and raped. Often the interlocutors (matchmakers) were compensated for making the arrangements. Instead of going to their weddings, the women were funneled into the Chechen jihadi network. Aset (Asya) Gishnurkayeva left her village of Naur to get married. When she got off the bus in Achkhoy-Martan, she was kidnapped and molested by Chechen men. It turned out that her mother had sold her to the jihadis. Aset ended up at the Dubrovka. When confronted by police afterward, her mother insisted that Aset was still alive somewhere in the Middle East, her whereabouts unknown. She refused to acknowledge that her daughter was killed at the Dubrovka even when shown photos from the attack.59
Russian authorities have also alleged that the girls were under the influence of drugs. It suits the Russian government to say that drugs, brainwashing, and blackmail are involved. To blame societal dynamics in Chechnya is easier than facing up to the role played by Russian soldiers in radicalizing Chechen women. The authorities do not want people to conclude that the situation in Chechnya is so desperate and the living circumstances so awful that women are driven to suicide and murder. So the Russian media regaled readers with stories of drugged and coerced zombies and implied that responsibility for their condition rested entirely on the Chechens themselves and on radical groups like Al Qaeda.
The claims perpetuated in Russian propaganda are refuted by stories of Russian soldiers laughing as they charge Chechen fathers 300 rubles (about $20) not to rape their daughters. According to the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, 85 percent of the women raped in Chechnya were raped by soldiers or police officers and 15 percent of the attackers were Chechens.60 In Chechnya, rape constitutes “normal conduct” and many of the cases never go to court due to the cultural norms or fear of retribution from the Russian authorities. The human rights violations fall under Russian policies of bespredel (without limits or boundaries)—committing atrocities and acting with impunity. The concept originated in Moscow’s world of organized crime and was exported to Chechnya; thus soldiers could do anything to Chechens with impunity.61
While the situation for women in Chechnya was dire, the truth about how women become involved in suicide operations remains murky. Certainly, Russian actions have played a significant role in traumatizing women and incentivizing them to seek revenge. However, a black-and-white interpretation is complicated by reports that several of the women who participated in the Dubrovka siege were “sold” to the resistance to become suicide bombers—as we have seen in the case of Fatima and Khadizhat Ganiyeva. Several of the women were the sisters (not the widows) of well-known jihadis who had been paid as much as $1,500 per sister to deliver shahidat. The families of four of the women (Aset, Raina, Ayman, and Koku) reported that their daughters had been kidnapped and trained to kill against their will.
It is difficult to know for sure. Whatever the truth—whether these women chose their fate willingly or were pushed into participation—the attack against the theater was very much a family affair. The terrorists in the room comprised sisters, aunts, uncles, husbands, cousins, and wives. Thirty-two of the terrorists carried their real passports (which were later used to identify them) and several of the attackers were related to one another.
There is no doubt that recruiters routinely target young women who have lost someone during the war, like a close male relative. As a result of the stress from the war, women are highly impressionable and readily convinced to carry out a suicide mission. The organization instills an intense hatred of Russians for causing the death of her loved ones. The outside world is cast in terms of good and evil and an intense religious indoctrination follows.
Not all of the girls are religious. Most of them have grown up in secular environments, wearing miniskirts, listening to rock and roll, and watching American movies. But the recruiters deliberately misinterpret the Qur’an to persuade their recruits to become martyrs. Most of the girls have grown up in large families and are told that as shahidat they are the only hope for the families’ future and their actions will save the whole clan. The girls’ new comrades promise to make sure that their families will be taken care of financially, and promise the girls’ families thousands of dollars for their daughters’ sacrifice. The girls are placed in a closed environment in which they know no one. The psychological process involves bolstering the girls’ self-image while simultaneously cutting it down. So while the women train to be fighters, they are also made to do the men’s laundry and cook for them. Some of the girls think that life in the rebel camp will be full of adventure. No longer mere village girls frightened by life, they will be transformed into fighters and future heroines respected by their comrades and celebrated by their communities.
Although not all of the Chechen female bombers fit this profile, the majority were younger than thirty. While not all had lost relatives in the fighting against Russian troops or in the brutal purges of Chechen civilians by Russian security services, many had suffered during the mopping-up operations. Not all of them were raped, tortured, or humiliated by the Russian military, but all could tell tales of degradation under the occupation.62 Starting with the Second Chechen War, a new culture arose in which the norms of Chechen society and expectations of what women could contribute changed irrevocably. Many girls are convinced that a martyrdom operation is their best option. Recruiters now know that they cannot force the girls to do anything. A coerced bomber is considered “vocationally unsuitable and would blow the operation at any moment.” In the end the girls go to their deaths voluntarily.
TERROR AND COUNTER-TERROR
After the siege at the House of Culture, then Deputy Internal Affairs Minister Vladimir Vasilyev pledged publicly to cleanse not only Moscow, but all of Russia of Chechen “filth.” The hostage-takers’ families bore the brunt of Russia’s response. The relatives of the women terrorists were persecuted, kidnapped, and killed. Five weeks after the siege, while the parents of the Ganiyeva girls were with their grandchildren at a neighbor’s home watching television, the FSB came to the village of Assinovskaya and blew up their house. The Russian authorities destroyed the houses of all of the terrorists they could identify from the Dubrovka. In retaliation for the attack against the Ganiyevs, the homes of four Russian families in Assinovskaya were burned down three days later. Asya’s home, too, was blown up by the
Chechen administration and the Russian security services in retaliation for her participation in the siege. That December, the FSB killed Movsar Barayev’s brother Adlan. And the cycle of violence—as the Moscow subway bombings in March 2010 demonstrated—continues.
THE “PREGNANT” BOMBER
We are prepared to fast to the death, if necessary, but our love for justice and our country will live forever.
—Mairéad Farrell, Margaret Nugent, and Mary Doyle, hunger strikers, Armagh Prison, December 1, 19801
We are actively involved in the struggle at all levels raising the issues of sexism, violence against women, and discrimination, women must fight for their freedom.
—Mairéad Keane, Director, Sinn Féin’s Women’s Department, July 19902
SIOBHAN
Siobhan3 sat by herself staring out the window of a bus full of tourists and holidaymakers en route to Belfast International Airport. Her rosy cheeks were flushed with both nervousness and excitement. She was wearing denim overalls, the kind that pregnant women often wear, and concealed underneath them fifteen pounds of Semtex explosives strapped to her waist. Her mission: to plant the explosives at the airport and wait for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) to make its warning call to clear the premises. In her mind, she could accomplish this task without any civilians getting killed. However, the economic reverberations of such an attack would be huge: tourism in Northern Ireland would grind to a standstill and make it too expensive for the British government to remain and maintain its presence. By attacking a high-value site like the airport, the PIRA would also show that no target was beyond its reach. Siobhan’s mission took the PIRA’s use of female bomb smugglers to a new level. In a weekend of heightened bombing activity, with nine bombings and shootings all over the province that very day, in Lisburn, Newry, Derry, and Strabane, Siobhan’s ruse—pretending to be an expectant mother—might enable her to successfully carry out her mission without anyone ever suspecting her real identity.4