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Al-Qaeda starts up women's magazine
Radical Islamists have launched a new magazine publication on the internet especially for women. The aim of the magazine is to show women how to reconcile the apparent contradiction of fighting jihad while maintaining family life. The magazine is called Al-Khansa, after a famous Arab woman poet in the early days of Islam, who wrote eulogies to male relatives who had died in battle. It appears to be the first "jihadist" publication aimed exclusively at women. The magazine says it is published by an organisation called "The Women's Media Bureau in the Arabian Peninsula". And it claims that the former leader of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, Abd-al-Aziz al-Muqrin - who was killed by Saudi security forces in June - was one of its founders. Al-Khansa also appears to be linked to the most well-known jihadist outlet on the internet, Sawt al-Jihad - or Voice of Jihad. The first edition of the magazine uses fierce language similar to that found on Sawt-al-Jihad. One of its encouragements to jihad reads: "The blood of our husbands and the body parts of our children are our sacrificial offering."
| Ah, the old human sacrifice angle. Very big in the Koran... |
The main objective of the magazine seems to be to teach women married to radical Islamists how to support their husbands in their conflict with the authorities.
| Assuming they know how to read, of course... |
It also gives them specific advice on how to bring up their children in the path of jihad, how to provide first aid and what kind of physical training women need to prepare themselves for wearing a bomb belt in a pizza parlor fighting. Most of the articles are written as if by women, although it is not clear if they actually were.
"Mahmoud, great article, great, you really do write like a woman!"
"Umm, thanks, Ahmed, I think." |
Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-08-25 |
