Having run low on teenagers, the Islamic State (ISIS) is training women to carry out suicide missions in a desperate bid to defend its Raqqa stronghold in Syria from an impending Kurdish-led attack, sources told the human rights group "Syria is Being Slaughtered Silently."
The group disclosed that the jihadis have turned to women to carry out ground attacks and suicide missions, believing that these women will arouse less suspicion than men when they approach their targets, according to the Daily Express.
The formation of all-women suicide squads was prompted by reports that a large Kurdish-led offensive is expected in the city soon. The ISIS fighters have dug trenches and installed guns as they prepare to defend Raqqa.
The jihadist group has been conscripting Arab women to make up the new suicide battalion, offering them large sums of money to convince them to be part of the specialised squads, the human rights group said.
"It is unlikely the ISIS will use foreign jihadi brides from the notorious al-Khansaa brigades—which include several notorious British women, including recruitment chief and ex-rocker Sally Jones, who patrol the streets of Raqqa—because these women are vital to the brutal group's terrifying image,'' said the activists from the human rights group.
An Egyptian woman was recently offered a large amount of cash if she joins an ISIS suicide squad, promising her that she will later join her "husband in heaven."
Another woman known only as Farah from Raqqa claimed that an ISIS woman approached her to try and convince her to join the group which, the recruiter said, badly needs women for "battles to protect Raqqa" and that it was her "duty to the city'' to become one.
The ISIS recruiter also promised Farah that the group will take care of her family after her death and will give her family a huge amount of money even before she undertakes her mission, the Daily Mail reported.
"The conversation of this woman started to evolve trying to convince me to join ISIS, but what surprised me more was that she asked me to join a new women battalion of ISIS and their mission is not to fight, but to carry out suicidal operations against the enemy of ISIS,'' said Farah.
"They won't expect that a woman would do such an operation,'' Farah added.
Activist Abu Mohammed said the al-Khansaa battalion "has a bad reputation among the civilians, and is a nightmare for the women of Raqqa city because they provoke people for personal reasons."
He also claimed that some of the women who have joined the al-Khansaa battalion used to work as prostitutes and joined ISIS to get high pay while at the same time avoiding getting stoned to death for their sins.
