Women’s involvement in Islamist terrorist groups, such as AQIS and IS is not unprecedented in the Pakistani context. These women are deployed in various specialised capacities, necessitating a need to move from androcentric to gender neutral counter-terrorism policies.

On April 14, 2017, a young woman, arrested during a raid by the security forces in Lahore, admitted to planning an attack on a church on Easter as a suicide bomber. Noreen Leghari, a student at the Liaquat Medical University in Sindh, had disappeared from her house in Hyderabad in February.

Official reports claim that she had travelled to Syria to join the so-called Islamic State (IS), and had returned to target the Christian community in Lahore, with her husband who was killed during the raid. The question arises whether this case is an anomaly or indicative of a broader phenomenon.

… Sara Mahmood is a Research Analyst with the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.