Like Red Tulips at Springtime: Understanding the Absence of Female Martyrs in Afghanistan

Abstract

In an era where female suicide terrorism is on the rise in conflict regions such as the Middle East, the North Caucasus, and South Asia, why has Afghanistan been largely immune to this trend? Why do some violent groups use female suicide terrorism and others avoid it? This is a critical question for policy makers and analysts attempting to understand a dangerous terrorist phenomenon and how it may evolve in Afghanistan. During the anti-Soviet jihad, narratives were woven of men and women marching through the mountains of Nuristan to “offer their blood for the Islamic revolution like red tulips at springtime.” But today, women are wholly absent from the Taliban and their jihad in Afghanistan. This article analyzes, in particular, the absence of women in Taliban martyrdom operations. There are three primary findings from this study that explain the low propensity for female suicide bombers in Afghanistan. First, a permissive social and geographic environment in Afghanistan gives insurgents freedom of mobility and a resistance capacity characterized by a reduced necessity for female suicide bombers; second, the capacity of a fiercely conservative culture restricts female participation in both Afghan society and within insurgent organizations; and third, the pronounced absence of a female culture of martyrdom limits women from participation in insurgent actions and narratives.

Notes

1. Dataset records from 1981 to 31 December 2009, were compiled using the National Counterterrorism Center Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (NCTC) and data from the University of Haifa Suicide Terrorism Database (generously provided by Assaf Moghadam). Suicide attacks are, as Robert Pape defines, a mission in which “the method of attack … requires his or her death in order to succeed.” See: Robert Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Random House, 2005), p. 10.

2. Assaf Moghadam, The Globalization of Martyrdom: Al Qaeda, Salafi Jihad, and the Diffusion of Suicide Attacks (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2008); Moghadam, “Motives for Martyrdom: Al-Qaida, Salafi Jihad, and the Spread of Suicide Attacks,” International Security 33(3) (Winter 2008/09), pp. 46–78.

3. Female suicide attacks garner significant media attention affecting both domestic and international perceptions of a conflict. They also have the potential to shame men in order to mobilize their participation. See: Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), pp. 144–145.

4. Their was at least one female suicide bomber in Pakistan. An unidentified woman detonated herself outside a Christian school near Peshawar on 4 December 2007. See: “Woman in Pakistan Suicide Bombing,” BBC News, 4 December 2007 and “Female Suicide Bomber Killed, Pakistan Says,” USA Today, 4 December 2007. There are many reports of potential female suicide bombers in the waiting. Some recent reports include the airing of a video on a private television station in Waziristan showing a female combatant as a member of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party (ETIM). “Female Suicide Bomber Trained,” Daily Times, 19 June 2009. Additionally, Faqir Mohammed, the Taliban leader in Bajaur, stated in 2008 that Pakistani women have requested to become martyrs. “Face-to-Face with a Taliban Commander,” MSNBC, 6 May 2008. In February, a suspected Pakistani Taliban operative was arrested for allegedly conspiring to train 270 potential female suicide bombers. “TTP Man Held; was in City to Train 270 Teenage Girls as Suicide Bombers,” Daily Times, 18 February 2010. In 2004, an article titled “Jihad and Roses” was published in a Pakistani magazine “Newsline” that spoke of an Uzbek widow named Aziza supposedly training womein in northern Pakistan. Sudha Ramachandran, “Killers Turn to Suicide,” Asia Times, 15 October 2004. These incidents do suggest various groups in Pakistan, whether independently or in collaboration, may be progressing toward this tactic.

5. While Al Qaeda proper has not openly endorsed female suicide operations, Al Qaeda affiliates that follow the Salafi-jihadist ideology such as Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al-Shabaab, and the Caucuses Emirate have given tacit approval through their actions.

6. From 9 September 2001 to 30 December 2009, there were 414 suicide bombings in Afghanistan. Data available from Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS), National Counterterrorism Center Database. Available at http://wits.nctc.gov/Main.do

7. The first suicide attack in Afghanistan was an attack on the famous mujahedeen commander Ahmed Shah Massoud at Khwaja Bahauddin on 9 September 2001, by Arab Al Qaeda members. See: Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), pp. 582–584.

8. From 14 January 2004 to 31 December 2009, there were 1,288 suicide attacks in Iraq, according to WITS. Since 2003, there have been over 50 female suicide bombers in Iraq, according to the Iraqi Internal Ministry. See: Al Shabah Al-Jadid, “Number of Female Suicide Bombers in Iraq Increased,” Middle East Media Research Institute, 20 May 2009. Available at http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/16552.htm

9. From 1987 to May 2009, there have been 109 suicide attacks involving the Tamil Tigers, 23 of which were women. See: the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), “Suicide Attacks by the LTTE.” Available at http://satp.org/satporgtp/countries/shrilanka/database/data_suicide_killings.htm. A second database, the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST) has a total of 156 attackers between 1981 to 2001 with 33 female, 95 male, and 28 unknown gender, with a similar 21 percent female suicide bomber rate.

10. The CPOST found that of the 63 Chechen suicide bombers, 24 have been women. See: Robert A. Pape, Lindsey O’Rourke, and Jenna McDermit, “What Makes Chechen Women so Dangerous?” New York Times, 30 March 2010. Out of 13 attacks perpetrated by the PKK between 1996–1999, the CPOST found that women conducted at least nine.

11. Karla J. Cunningham, “Cross Regional Trends in Female Terrorism,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 26 (2003), pp. 171–195.

12. Since 2005, there have been several claims of female suicide bombers in Afghanistan, all of which were later confirmed to be men dressed in female attire. While this study does not deny that women in Afghanistan could carry out attacks in the future, these are likely to be few and would likely reflect idiosyncratic motivations as opposed to an emerging pattern. In fact, the first female suicide bomber in Afghanistan was on 20 June 2010 in Lar Sholtan village of Kunar province. While it was initially reported that Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the claim has since been withdrawn from the Taliban website. The attack was likely sponsored by Qari Zia Rahman's network that operates in Kunar, Nuristan and Bajaur. Rahman has close connections with both Al Qaeda and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. Rahman is highly independent and could easily orchestrate an independent operation not wholly sponsored by the Taliban. Locals initially reported that the woman, named Bibi Halima was Pashtun and that she joined the Taliban after two male members of her family were killed during night raids carried out by US forces. However, others have speculated the woman was from Pakistan. The sensitive nature of the event is a likely explanation for its removal from the Taliban's web archives.

13. Agency refers to the role of individuals (or organizations) and their actions, beliefs, and interests. Structure refers to the systems or institutions a society and it's agents construct, such as religion, politics, or economies (all with various identities and interests), which affect an agent's norms and behavior. It is assumed that structure and agency are inherently intertwined. While structure on agency is “constitutive and causal,” actor's interests and beliefs also play a significant role in influencing structure. See: Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 184–189, and Wendt, “Anarchy is what States make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics,” International Organization 46(2) (1992), pp. 391–425; Jeffrey Ian Ross, “Structural Causes of Oppositional Political Terrorism: Toward a Causal Model,” Journal of Peace Research 30(3) (1993), pp. 317–329.

14. Two authors, Karen Jacques and Paul J. Taylor, conducted a valuable study comparing individual motivations between men and women: “Male and Female Suicide Bombers: Different Sexes, Different Reasons?” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 31(4) (April 2008), pp. 304–326. Other authors have also written specifically on female suicide terrorism include (but not limited to): Bloom, Dying to Kill, pp. 142–165; Claudia Brunner, “Occidentalism Meets the Female Suicide Bomber: A Critical Reflection on Recent Terrorism Debates: A Review Essay,” Journal of Women in Culture and Society 32(4) (2007), pp. 957–971; David Cook, “Women Fighting in Jihad?” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 28 (2005), pp. 375–384; Karla J. Cunningham, “The Evolving Participation of Muslim Women in Palestine, Chechnya, and the Global Jihadi Movement,” in Cindy D. Ness, ed., Female Terrorism and Militancy: Agency, Utility, and Organization (New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2008), pp. 84–99.

15. Pape believes that in understanding suicide operations as an organizational tactic we must look at it through the lens of a strategic “protracted suicide terrorist campaign.” A suicide campaign could be limited to one target at one time, while others could be spread out at multiple targets over an extended period of time. In Pape's study, and for the purpose of this paper, any organized suicide operation with a network of foot soldiers, trainers and leaders will constitute a suicide campaign. Robert Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Random House Trade, 2005), p. 20.

16. For earlier multi-pronged approaches at understanding terrorism, see Martha Crenshaw, “The Causes of Terrorism,” Comparative Politics 13(4) (July 1981), pp. 379–399; Gordon H. McCormick, “Terrorist Decision Making,” Annual Review of Political Science 6 (June 2003), pp. 473–507.

17. Operating dependent of each other, he dissected suicide operations onto individual, societal, and organizational levels of analysis. Mohammed M. Hafez, “Rationality, Culture, and Structure in the Making of Suicide Bombers: A Preliminary Theoretical Synthesis and Illustrative Case Study,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29 (2006), pp. 165–185; Mohammed M. Hafez, Manufacturing Human Bombs: The Making of Palestinian Suicide Bombers (Washington: US Institute of Peace, 2006).

18. Assaf Moghadam, “The Roots of Suicide Terrorism: A Multi-Causal Approach,” in Ami Pedahzur, ed., Root Causes of Suicide Terrorism: The Globalization of Martyrdom (New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. 81–107; Moghadam, The Globalization of Martyrdom.

19. Barbara Victor, Army of Roses (London: Constable & Robinson, 2006).

20. Ami Pedahzur, Arie Perliger, and Leonard Weinberg, “Altruism and Fatalism: The Characteristics of Palestinian Suicide Terrorists,” Deviant Behavior 24(4) (July 2003), pp. 405–423; Bruce Hoffman and G. H. McCormick, “Terrorism, Signaling and Suicide Attack,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 27(4) (2004), pp. 243–281; Assaf Moghadam, “Palestinian Suicide Terrorism in the Second Intifada: Motivations and Organizational Aspects,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 26(2) (March 2003), pp. 65–92; Bloom, Dying to Kill, pp. 83–85.

21. Mohammed M. Hafez, “Rationality, Culture, and Structure in the Making of Suicide Bombers: A Preliminary Theoretical Synthesis and Illustrative Case Study,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 29 (2006), pp. 165–185.

22. Ami Pedahzur, Suicide Terrorism (London: Polity, 2005), pp. 126–134.

23. Jacques and Taylor, “Male and Female Suicide Bombers,” 321.

24. Ibid., pp. 314–315.

25. Speckhard and Akhedova interviewed numerous family members of female suicide bombers in Chechnya and found most of the perpetrators were distraught over the loss of a loved one, were seeking revenge, and to rid their homeland of occupation. These underlying issues were wrapped in a moral narrative of fard ‘ayn (the individual obligation to jihad) that has been conceptualized by Al Qaeda leadership and legitimized by Islamic legal scholars. The lack of a viable resistance force in Chechnya compelled many to accept fard ‘ayn endorsed by the Salafi-jihadist movement. Women took on the Islamic identity offered by militant jihadists in Chechnya and the roles that defined them—wearing of the hijab, piety, and the rejection of secular values helped merge religious and nationalist intentions with personal trauma. See: Anne Speckhard and Khapta Akhmedova, “Black Widows and Beyond: Understanding the Motivations and Life Trajectories of Chechen Female Terrorists,” in Cindy D. Ness, ed., Female Terrorism and Militancy: Agency, Utility, and Organization (New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 100–121.

26. Many were pressured into choosing service as suicide bombers or recruiters of future bombers, such as Samira Ahmed Jassim, captured in January 2009, for attempting to persuade women into joining the cell. Tuty Raihanah Mostarom, “Al Qaeda's Female Jihadists: The Islamist Ideological View,” RSIS Commentary, no. 15 (February 2009). Available at http://www.rsis.edu.sg/publications/Perspective/RSIS0142009.pdf

27. Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).

28. Bloom, Dying to Kill, p. 147.

29. Rosemarie Skaine, Female Suicide Bombers (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2006), p. 33.

30. Pedahzur, Suicide Terrorism, p. 27; Hafez, Manufacturing Human Bombs.

31. Debra Zedalis, “Beyond the Bombings: Analyzing Female Suicide Bombers,” in Cindy D. Ness, ed., Female Terrorism and Militancy: Agency, Utility, and Organization (New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 49–68.

32. Pape, Dying to Win, p. 30; Hoffman and McCormick, “Terrorism, Signaling and Suicide Attack.”

33. Pape, Dying to Win, pp. 20–24.

34. Mia M. Bloom, “Palestinian Suicide Bombing: Public Support, Market Share, and Outbidding,” Political Science Quarterly 119(1) (Spring 2004), pp. 61–88.

35. Jon Elster, “Motivations and Beliefs in Suicide Missions,” in Diego Gambetta, ed., Making Sense of Suicide Missions (New York: Oxford Press, 2005), pp. 234–258.

36. Nick Ayers, “Ghost Martyrs in Iraq: An Assessment of the Applicability of Rationalist Models to Explain Suicide Attacks in Iraq,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 31(9) (September 2008), pp. 856–882.

37. For more on tactical utility of suicide attacks see Luis de la Corte and Andrea Gilmenez-Salinas, “Suicide Terrorism as a Tool of Insurgency Campaigns: Functions, Risk Factors, and Countermeasures,” Perspectives on Terrorism 3(1) (April 2009), pp. 11–19.

38. Cindy D. Ness, “In the Name of the Cause: Women's Work in Secular and Religious Terrorism,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 28 (2005): 353–373.

39. Ami Pedahzur, “Toward an Analytical Model of Suicide Terrorism—A Comment.” Terrorism and Political Violence 16 (2004), pp. 841–844.

40. Mohammed M. Hafez, “Rationality, Culture, and Structure in the Making of Suicide Bombers,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 29 (2006), pp. 165–185.

41. Cook, “Women Fighting in Jihad?”; Ness, “In the Name of the Cause”; Debra Zedalis, Female Suicide Bombers (International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), June 2004); Susan McKay, “Girls as ‘Weapons of Terror’ in Northern Uganda and Sierra Leonean Rebel Fighting Forces,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 28 (2005), pp. 385–397; Carolyn Nordstrom, “Gendered War,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 28 (2005), pp. 399–411.

42. David E. Jones, Women Warriors: A History (Dulles: Potomac Books Inc., 1997), pp. 18–19.

43. Von Knop, “The Female Jihad,” p. 407.

44. Cindy D. Ness, “The Rise in Female Violence,” Daedalus 136(1) (Winter 2007), p. 86.

45. Karla J. Cunningham, “The Evolving Participation of Muslim Women in Palestine, Chechnya, and the Global Jihadi Movement,” in Cindy D. Ness, ed., Female Terrorism and Militancy: Agency, Utility, and Organization (New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2008), p. 86.

46. This assumption follows the tactical arguments for female suicide missions developed in the literature review above.

47. A curious outlier for this argument may be Sri Lanka. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were an ethno-linguistic representative of the Tamil population which predominately resided in the northeast section of Sri Lanka. There was also a substantial Diaspora in southern region of India, Tamil Nadu. In both these areas, LTTE were able to seek refuge as needed and had a relatively consistent international network to rely upon for financial, logistical, and political sustenance. Still, the LTTE used female suicide bombers on a relatively consistent basis for over 20 years. An argument can be made that these bombers were used during times of potential crisis, such as parliamentary elections that threatened to undermine the political power of the LTTE in Sri Lanka. These attacks provided a spoiler role to undermine political progress that may have left LTTE as relative losers. Moreover, many argue that the suppression of Tamil identity over Sinhalese identity created a long-lasting perception of insecurity even within areas predominately controlled by LTTE. The perception of institutional insecurity that continued into the twenty-first century forced reactions such as the creation of the Women's Front of the Liberation Tigers in 1983 and other self-help mechanisms for both women and the organization they represented. Understanding how the LTTE perceived their security posture within Tamil-held territory would provide useful context for this variable. The following authors have done considerable work in addressing these structural dynamics and the impact on perceptions of security: Neil De Votta, Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004); Mangalika de Silva, “The Other Body and the Body Politic: Contingency and Dissonance in Narratives of Violence,” in Monique Skidmore and Patricia Lawrence, eds., Women and the Contested State: Religion, Violence, and Agency in South and Southeast Asia (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), pp. 139–164; Brendan O’Duffy, “LTTE: Majoritarianism, Self-Determination, and Military-to-Political Transition in Sri Lanka,” in Marianne Heiberg, Brendan O’Leary and John Tirman, eds., Terror, Insurgency, and the State: Ending Protracted Conflicts (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), pp. 257–288; Mahnaz Ispahani, “India's Role in Sri Lanka's Ethnic Conflict,” in Ariel Levite, Bruce W. Jentleson, and Larry Berman, eds., Foreign Military Intervention: The Dynamics of Protracted Conflict (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), pp. 209–239.

48. Thomas H. Johnson, “On the Edge of the Big Muddy: The Taliban Insurgence in Afghanistan,” China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly 5(2) (2007), pp. 101–109; Guistozzi, Koran, Kalishnikov, and Laptop, pp. 110–114; Johnson and Mason, “Refighting the Last War: Afghanistan and the Vietnam Template,” Military Review (November–December 2009), pp. 1–14.

49. Marshal Akhromeyev commented in 1986, “We control Kabul and the provincial centers, but … we have lost the battle for the Afghan people.” See: Michael Dobbs, “The Afghan Archive: Secret Memos Trace Kremlin's March to War,” Washington Post, 15 November 1992, p. A1.

50. Dexter Filkins, “Stanley McChrystal's Long War,” New York Times Magazine, 18 October 2009.

51. Al-Sabaah Al-Jadid reported in May 2009 that the Iraqi Interior Ministry released figures showing over 50 female suicide bombers conducted operations between 2004 and 2008. In 2008 alone, 32 were recorded. See: “Number of Female Suicide Bombers in Iraq Increases,” The Middle East Media Research Institute. Available at http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/16552.htm

52. For an excellent report of suicide terrorism in Afghanistan see: “Suicide Attacks in Afghanistan (2001–2007),” United Nations Assistance Mission Afghanistan, 9 September 2007.

53. Sean M. Maloney, “A Violent Impediment: The Evolution of Insurgent Operations in Kandahar Province 2003–07,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 19(2) (2008), p. 204; Antonio Giustozzi, Koran, Kalishnikov and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), p. 148.

54. On 27 January 2004, an insurgent detonated this crude explosive mix next to a NATO convoy. See: H. John Poole, Militant Tricks, Battlefield Ruses of the Islamic Insurgent (North Carolina: Posterity Press, 2005), p. 99.

55. Montgomery McFate, “Iraq: The Social Context of IEDs,” Military Review (May–June 2005), p. 37.

56. One weapons cache was found to have 15 bombs hidden in a mosque in Kabul, see: Giustozzi, Koran, Kalishnikov, and Laptop, p. 149.

57. Clay Wilson, “Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan: Effects and Countermeasures,” CRS Report for Congress, The Library of Congress, Updated 8 February 2008.

58. Johnson, “On the Edge of the Big Muddy,” p. 98.

59. Jason Yung, “Afghanistan: The Taliban,” Parliamentary Information and Research Service, PRB 07–27E, Canada, 5 December 2007.

60. Maloney, “A Violent Impediment,” p. 213.

61. Amir Shah, “Bombing Kills 9 Afghan Soldiers,” New York Times, 29 September 2005.

62. Analysts within the U.S. government and journalists with significant access to the region agree that elements within the Pakistani ISI were providing direct logistical and intelligence support to the Taliban. While it is not overt Pakistani policy to support insurgents in Afghanistan, there are certainly elements within Pakistan's security establishment that see the Taliban as a hedge against an unfriendly administration in Kabul. However, this miscalculation has brought significant internal calamity to Pakistan, essentially unleashing an uncontrollable Frankenstein. In Pakistan there were 56 suicide attacks in 2008, and 38 in the first half of 2009. A number of attacks have targeted Pakistan's internal security apparatus, religious institutions, and important infrastructure between Afghanistan and Pakistan. See: Jones, “Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan,” 2008; Congressman Mark Kirk, “Afghanistan: The Rise of the Narco-Taliban,” Testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing on Afghanistan, 15 February 2007; Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, “No Sign Until the Burst of Fire: Understanding the Pakistan–Afghanistan Frontier,” International Security, 32(4) (Spring 2008), pp. 41–77; Matthew Cole, “Killing Ourselves in Afghanistan,” Salon.com , 10 March 2008.

63. Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, “Understanding the Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan,” Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs 51(1) (2006), p.13 p. 82.

64. Giustozzi, Koran, Kalishnikov, and Laptop, p. 149.

65. Bryan Glyn Williams and Cathy Young, “Cheney Attack Reveals Taliban Suicide Bombing Patterns,” The Jamestown Foundation, 27 February 2007. Available at http://www.jamestown.org/news_details.php?news_id=222

66. Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, “Disabled Often Carry Out Afghan Suicide Missions,” NPR News, 15 October 2007.

67. International Security Assistance Force or ISAF is the international command headquartered in Kabul providing security assistance to Afghanistan.

68. For example, Dutch ISAF refused to deploy in areas where suicide bombings were widespread. International forces began tightening their force protection procedures and treating normal Afghan civilians as the enemy. In January 2006, after a suicide car bomb assassinated a high-level Canadian diplomat in Kandahar, the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) suspended a large number of desperately needed development projects in some of the most critical areas of the province. See: Maloney, “A Violent Impediment,” p. 210.

69. For an excellent study of the narcotics industry in Afghanistan see Vanda Felbab-Brown, Shooting Up: Counterinsurgency and the War on Drugs (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2009).

70. Jason H. Campbell and Jeremy Shapiro, “Afghanistan Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-9/11 Afghanistan,” Brookings Institution, 19 May 2009.

71. Gallup Consulting, “C-IED Media Survey,” Gallup, Inc., 16 May 2008.

72. Suicide attacks were addressed in rule 41 of the 2009 Laheya (rulebook), stating the following guidelines for conducting an attack: “The attacker must be fully educated of their mission; Attacks must only target high ranking people; Civilian deaths must be avoided; and suicide attacks must be approved by Taliban provincial authorities.”

73. In northeastern Afghanistan, severing ears, lips, and noses from captured civilians has become a common insurgent trend, particularly among foreign fighters and non-Taliban insurgent factions in Kunar and Nuristan. Beheadings, once a common recreation of Mullah Dadullah, have been frequently denounced by Mullah Omar as a form of execution. “Insurgent Abuses against Afghan Civilians,” AIHRC, December 2008; “Taliban Chief Orders Change in Mode of Executions,” IRIN News, 4 February 2008.

74. An Uzbek woman with the IMU was killed in 2009 in Kunduz province (northern Afghanistan). She was found with an automatic rifle and ammunition slung across her chest. See: “Militants, including Woman, Killed in Afghan Ambush-Summary,” Earth Times, 28 August 2009.

75. Audrey C. Shalinsky, “Women's Roles in the Afghanistan Jihad,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 25(4) (November 1993), p. 674.

76. Bibi Ayesha is also the name of the daughter of Abu Bakr and one of the wives of the Prophet Mohammad.

77. Ayesha was disarmed by the United Nations Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups program in 2006. Tom Coghlan, “Afghanistan's Feared Woman Warlord,” BBC News, 16 March 2006.

78. Sayd Bahodine Majrouh (ed.), Songs of Love and War: Afghan Women's Poetry (trans.) Marjolijn de Jager (New York: Other Press, 2003), p. 39.

79. Pashto proverbs hail the role of motherhood: “Paradise is under the feet of a mother” and “The angel of blessing does not put his foot in a home with no women.” Anna M. Pont, Blind Chickens and Social Animals: Creating Spaces for Afghan Women's Narratives Under the Taliban (Portland: Mercy Corps, 2001), p. 82.

80. David B. Edwards, Heroes of the Age, Moral Fault Lines on the Afghan Frontier (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), p. 59.

81. Deborah Ellis, Women of the Afghan War (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2000), p. 50.

82. Women's networks developed informal schools, health clinics, legal advice, and donations to the poor and a number of other social services otherwise absent from the Taliban government. See: Elaheh Rostami-Povey, Afghan Women: Identity & Invasion (New York: Zed Books, Ltd., 2007), pp. 28–30.

83. David Edwards's thesis in Heroes of the Age presents the notion that honor, Islam, and rule (represented by state governance) “represent distinct moral orders that are in many respects incompatible with one another.” While these realms find ways to reconcile their differences in the interest of society, they remained the foundation of internal conflict with the rise of the nation-state.

84. One famous Pashtun poet, Kushhal Khan Khatak writes: “The very name of Pushtun spells honour and glory, Lacking that honour, what is the Afghan story?” see: Ralph H. Magnus and Eden Naby, Afghanistan: Mullah, Marx, and Mujahid (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998), p. 13.

85. Pashtuns that have been dishonored are obligated to seek revenge in order to regain their status within the community. Revenge may take years, even generations to secure, as one proverb makes clear: “People say of the Pakhtun who took revenge after a hundred years, ‘He took it quickly.’” See: Edwards, Heroes of the Age, p. 241, n. 9.

86. A man without honor is called daus, or one who is “unable to preserve the sexual honor of his wife … that the normally sacrosanct domestic quarter of his home is violable and that he himself has not the power to defend his home, his lands, or his women”. This is undoubtedly the worst identity one could be bestowed. See: Edwards, Heroes of the Age, p. 58.

87. The nature of power relations in Afghanistan is not absolute. Some women have more power and dominate over men within their home, family, or tribe in subtle ways that may or may not be viewable to the community or outsiders.

88. Olivier Roy states that, “Afghan peasant life is permeated by religion.” Islam is a structure that provides norms and regulations for how Afghans are to think, behave and relate to each other. Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, p. 30.

89. For discussion of these differences see Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, p. 36; also Vartan Gregorian, The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1969), p. 41; Akbar Ahmed, Pukhtun Economy and Society (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), p. 295; Louis Dupree, Afghanistan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 104.

90. The encroaching influence of the centralized state and international institutions on issues such as women's rights and modernization has also been a point of contention for both tribal and religious groups, which see these issues as their own territory dealt with through customary and Sharia law, not Western law. See: Deniz Kandiyoti, “Old Dilemmas or New Challenges? The Politics of Gender and Reconstruction in Afghanistan,” Development and Change 38(2) (2007), pp. 169–199; Nancy Hatch Dupree “Afghan Women under the Taliban,” in William Maley, ed., Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban (London: Hurst and Company, 2001), pp. 145–166.

91. Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, p. 36; Johnson and Mason, “No Sign Until the Burst of Fire.”

92. Gilles Dorronsoro, Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to Present (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), p. 58.

93. Xinhua, “Gunmen Kill Pro-Gov't Tribal Leader in S. Afghanistan,” China View, 6 June 2008; an example in Pakistan can be found here: Hassan Abbas, “A Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan,” CTC Sentinel 1(2) (January 2008), pp. 1–4.

94. Maliks (tribal leaders) have been known to refuse refuge for mullahs that preach against GIRoA or try to undermine the malik's authority by imposing Taliban-like rules and regulations.

95. Considerable evidence shows the seeds of social changes were planted much earlier. In 1959, Prime Minister Mohammad Daoud and his cabinet appeared in front of the world during Independence Day celebrations with their wives’ faces exposed, causing anger throughout the Pashtun heartland. Thirty years prior, King Amanullah suffered the consequences of tribal and religious revolt when he implemented a campaign to modernize the country with Ataturk-like policies. Amanullah's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mahmud Tarzi, a frequent traveler in Europe, was subject to having photos of his Western-dressed daughter, Queen Soraya, distributed by conservative opponents in the late 1920s. This created calls that the King had “turned against Allah and Islam!” Ultimately, Amanullah's reform efforts created significant backlash from conservative and traditional factions to the extent that Shinwari Pashtuns burned down the King's palace and the British Consulate in Jalalabad in 1928. See: Louis Dupree, Afghanistan, pp. 448–452, 530–531.

96. The level of conservatism varies throughout the country and is dependent on the tribe and family from which women reside. Whereas most women in Kabul travel without the full burqa or chaddari (a loose garment completely covering a woman's body and face), hardly any will be seen in Kandahar without it. Kuchi (nomad) women will freely walk about their encampments without the covering. Kalasha are a non-Islamic tribe in the north-eastern Nuristan Province that do not follow the rules of purdah. Other tribal women will farm and collect water with or without the burqa dependent on the presence of men in the area. Most women are required to travel in pairs, during the daytime or be accompanied by their husbands or male relatives (otherwise known as mahram).

97. Selling one's daughter for a fixed amount in order to settle a debt is commonly associated with the Pashtun practice of badal. Girls can also be traded to settle a dispute between clans, otherwise known as the practice of bad dadan.

98. An estimated 60–80 percent of Afghan marriages are forced, and more than 57 percent of women are married before they turn age 16, many to men several decades older. See: “Afghan Women Turn to Suicide by Fire,” Associated Press, 18 November 2006.

99. Many of the courts are run by Taliban shadow justice systems. See: John W. Warnock, “The Status of Women in Karzai's Afghanistan,” Global Research, 14 April 2009.

100. One report cited 56 percent of women in Kabul prisons in 2005 were held there for these reasons. See: “Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan and on the Achievements of Technical Assistance in the Field of Human Rights,” Report No. E/CN.4/2006/108, Sixty-Second Session of the Commission on Human Rights, 3 March 2006, p. 6.

101. Purdah is the practice of women's seclusion and the segregation of the sexes. It is applicable primarily to women past the age of puberty, but young girls and boys will often be separated. Anna M. Pont, Blind Chickens and Social Animals: Creating Spaces for Afghan Women's Narratives Under the Taliban (Portland: Mercy Corps, 2001), p. 18.

102. The adult literacy rate for women in Afghanistan in 2005 was a meager 12 percent, compared to 43 percent for men. See: “Human Development Report 2007/2008” UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Available at http://www.uis.unesco.org/

103. President Hamid Karzai's wife, Zenat Karzai, practices purdah. Women's rights groups often question her seclusion, especially since she is an educated and trained gynecologist. Although not wanting to stir the ire of conservative Pashtuns as King Zahir Shah did when presenting his wife in public in Western clothing during the 1950s, the Karzais have chosen a less public image for Afghanistan's first lady. See the first interview with Zenat Karzai: “Afghan First Lady's Quiet Public Debut,” The Telegraph, 12 April 2004.

104. Louis Dupree writes, “A careful examination of the Qor’an, the Hadith (Sayings of the Prophet), and the Hanafi Shari’a of Sunni Islam (the religious law practiced in Afghanistan), reveals no definite, unqualified requirement for purdah and the veil,” Afghanistan, p. 531.

105. Dupree, Afghanistan, p. 531.

106. Some women feel the international community is forcing them to take off the burqa. The ability to choose what to wear instead of being told by outsiders is the key component here. Elaheh Rostami-Povey, Afghan Women: Identity and Invasion (New York: Zed Books, 2007), p. 37.

107. In 2007, almost 500 cases were recorded of women burning themselves to death or disfigurement in order to escape abusive situations. See: Mandy Clark, “Rights Groups say Afghan Women Committing Suicide at Alarming Rate,” Voice of America, 27 May 2008. In Herat province, there were 93 cases in 2005 and at least 54 in 2006. See: “Afghan Women Turn to Suicide by Fire,” Associated Press, 18 November 2006.

108. An ancient Hindu practice in India (now outlawed) where recently widowed women would throw themselves onto the funeral pyre of their deceased husbands.

109. John W. Warnock, “The Status of Women in Karzai's Afghanistan,” Global Research, 14 April 2009.

110. A law was introduced in 2009 that wives are obliged to have sexual relations with their husbands at least once every four days. The new law allows the man to withhold food from his wife if she refuses sexual intercourse; must receive permission from her husband to work; and the father and grandfather are given exclusive custody of her children. See: Sarah Rainsford, “Row over Afghan Wife-Starving Law,” BBC News, 16 August 2009.

111. For examples of this Western aesthetic, see: Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Triosson, Ossian Receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes (1802); Constantino Brumidi, Apotheosis of Washington (1865); Alonso Earl Folinger, “The Greatest Mother,” Red Cross Poster, Library of Congress (1918); James Aulich, War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communication (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2007); George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); Philip M. Taylor, Munitions of the Mind: A History of Propaganda from the Ancient World to the Present Day (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995).

112. Mohammad Yousaf and Mark Adkin, Afghanistan the Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower (Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2001), p. 33.

113. A Ghazi is one who wages a ghazawat, or a victorious raid. It is a term of recognition. See: Magnus and Naby, Afghanistan: Mullah, Marx, and Mujahid, p. 35.

114. “Afghanistan: Taliban Propaganda Effective among Pashtoons,” IRIN News, 1 August 2007.

115. Night Letters or Shabnamah are letters or leaflets posted on public spaces to warn Afghans against cooperating against the government or with foreign occupiers. They also present warnings to stay away from particular roads, schools, or other projects coordinated by international institutions. They intimidate, threaten, and provide information to locals. See: Aryn Baker, “Deadly Notes in the Night: How the Taliban is Using a New Kind of Terrorist Threat to Intimidate Afghans,” Time, 5 July 2006.

116. Thomas H. Johnson, “The Taliban Insurgency and an Analysis of Shabnamah (Night Letters),” Small Wars and Insurgencies 18(3) (September 2007), p. 319.

117. Johnson writes that narratives, “have an effect on our capacity to recall events, motivate action, modulate our emotional reactions to events, cue certain heuristics and biases, structure our problem-solving capabilities and ultimately influence our very identity.” Johnson, “The Taliban Insurgency,” p. 319. See also: Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald (eds.), Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

118. Dupree, Afghanistan, pp. 410–411.

119. Balkhi wrote love poetry in Persian. She died after her brother cut her throat for infidelity and it is said she wrote her last poem in her own blood. When the Taliban captured Mazar-e-Sharif, they protected her tomb from desecration. See: Rostami-Povey, Afghan Women, p. 16.

120. Literally meaning “the short one,” landay is a poem consisting of two verse lines of nine and thirteen syllables, absent of rhyme. Sayd Bahodine Majrouh, Songs of Love and War, pp. ix–xvi.

121. Ibid., 67.

122. Ibid., Songs of Love and War, 16.

123. Audrey C. Shalinsky, “Women's Roles in the Afghanistan Jihad,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 25(4) (November 1993), pp. 661–675.

124. Sayd Bahodine Majrouh, Songs of Love and War, p. 16.

125. Ibid.

126. Ibid.

127. Ibid., p. 17.

128. Ibid.

129. “Taliban Hits Airwaves in Southeastern Afghanistan,” NPR, 3 August 2007.

130. Bluetooth is a method of file transfer from computer servers to cell phones that allows one to hear music or view videos and photos. The author has listened to a CD of Bluetooth music files in Pashto acquired by researchers with the Program for Culture and Conflict Studies, Naval Postgraduate School.

131. Shamat or “valour” can be seen at www.shahamat.org

132. “Afghanistan: Taliban Launch New Radio Station in South,” Xinhua, 8 August 2009.

133. Anthony Hyman, Afghanistan Under Soviet Domination (New York: Macmillan Press, 1982), p. 125.

134. “Afghanistan: Taliban Propaganda Effective among Pashtoons,” IRIN News, 1 August 2007.

135. Ruth Rennie, Sudhindra Sharma, and Pawan Sen, “Afghanistan in 2009: A Survey of the Afghan People,” The Asia Foundation, Fig. 8.2, p. 124 and Table 8.6, p. 132.