Apr 3, 2003 1 min read

The lessons of equal opportunity have not gone unlearned by al-Qaida. Long allied with the Taliban that treated women as chattel, the al-Qaida is taking a second look at the value of women. They, too, can become terrorists.

News of this shift in gender thinking came by way of an FBI be-on-the-lookout bulletin for a woman wanted for questioning in the terrorism investigation. This is the first that the FBI has sought a woman since the hunt for terrorists began. Another woman made claims in an Arab newspaper that Osama bin Laden asked her to open training camps for female terrorists.

Using women as weapons isn’t unheard of, as recently four Palestinian women became suicide bombers. And in Iraq, women and children are being used as human shields to lure U.S. troops into thinking that they are encountering harmless civilians while Iraqi soldiers lay in wait to attack.

So it isn’t far-fetched that al-Qaida would plan to use women as ammunition in its warped war.