Female militants take on more radical roles

KUALA LUMPUR: Women militants who used to play superficial roles in terror cells here are becoming more radical, taking on pivotal tasks such as planning and launching armed attacks like their male counterparts.
Federal police Special Branch Counter-Terrorism Division (CTD) principal assistant director Datuk Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay today said the women were previously tasked with roles such as fundraising, promotion of terrorism and recruitment of militants.
Ayob said women were targeted by Daesh as it was easier for the terror group to influence them to embrace the ideology, especially through the social media.
"We have held them for playing supporting or less significant roles but now they are found to be getting involved in more serious ones such as terror acts. We are concerned about this new trend," he told the media in an event at the UITM campus in Selayang.
Ayob cited a case of a 51-year-old woman who was arrested by the CTD just hours ahead of her plan to crash her car into voters at a polling station in Puchong during the May 9 General Elections.
The woman had also planned to load up her car with gas cylinders, crash and blow it up at houses of worship.
"This is the first such case of a woman attempting such attack in Malaysia," Ayob said. "She had got the idea from other similar attacks pulled off by militants overseas. We caught her just in time and this is shows they are capable of such acts.
"A total of 403 militants have been detained since 2012, of which 43 are women. This is quite a large number of women and if we do not monitor them, they are capable of launching massive armed attacks."
He also revealed that a few days ago the CTD arrested a woman for financing terrorist activities overseas.
He said, fortunately, there are no children in Malaysia who are involved in militancy as in other countries.