Calling For Help!!!

"[Call for research proposals] to better understand why and under which circumstances women are recruited and the extent to which they become involved in violent extremist movements."
"In some circumstances, the power and influence that women have in communities and families means that they have important roles to play in either endorsing or countering violent extremism as legitimate action."
"[A study to be submitted by June 2015 that] will be used to inform policies and programs in the area of terrorism and counter-terrorism [to aid police and community groups in the problem of violent radicalization]."
Public Safety Canada call for proposal

Zahra Halane, 16, poses with an AK-47, an Isis flag, knife and grenade. A series of tweets about her kitten, thrown out by her husband, betray her youth.

"We're obviously at a point of reflection right now, so we're looking at a wide variety of things that we might want to consider. Nothing is off the table, we're going through and looking at what makes sense."
"[Domestic radicalization is] a material issue as we've been seeing in the last month or so here in Canada. It's one we've been experiencing for years, and it's certainly one we want to get a better handle on."
"In some cases, people come back quite disillusioned. So it's quite possible and one would expect some segment out of that 80 are folks that would have no intention of pursuing anything further because they've seen enough ... or they didn't have the extreme experiences that some others do and they haven't glorified it. I'm just suggesting that there are some that aren't as high a risk as others."
Gary Robertson, assistant deputy minister, public safety

Well, who is to say which of those Canadians who have chosen to travel abroad to fulfill their Islamist obligations to jihad are the potential local time-bombs whose presence is feared and anticipated? The last month gave ample evidence of what lurks in the shadows of civilized Canadian society, after all, striking where least expected, and shocking the wits out of government and intelligence-gathering bodies alike.

Mr. Robertson, speaking before the Senate security committee, explained the government direction that prevention achieved largely through community outreach and intervention remains the most appealing manner in which to address the problem of radicalization. Sounds good, but convincing the community from which the radicals hail that it is their civic and citizenship duty to participate and make an effort to restrain the radicals, convincing them that violent jihad does not reflect their Islam, hasn't worked so efficiently to date.

Of the 80 individuals whom Canadian intelligence is shadowing there have been a few break-outs with disastrous consequences. Another 120 individuals with Islamist conviction and jihadist attraction have left the country to fight for the jihadist cause. Now, not only alarm at the number of Canadian-raised young Muslim men taking up the cause but young Muslim women as well. That young Muslima as young as 14 are responding to recruitment is concerning.

Salma Halane, who is now reportedly married to an Isis fighter. Photograph: Cavendish Press

Enough so that government is seeking to contract out research to help understand why young girls are responding to the invitation to take part in violent Islamist jihad as wives and future mothers of future jihadis. Contractors are asked to analyze why and how it is that women are being recruited; to determine the number of women related to terrorist groups and support networking; and their presumed motivation to join.

The method of radicalization of women and the challenges to security related to the radicalization of women into the jihadist ideology another part of the research. The use of social media in extracting interest from young women and girls to lend themselves to the duty of becoming wives for Islamic State terrorists. What it is in their experience from childhood to quasi-adulthood that lends them and leads them to this ideological enterprise of conquest and murder?

Ah, the pure romance of it all ....

Aqsa Mahmood, a graduate, appealed on 11 September for others to jojn her: ‘This is a war against Islam … either you’re with them or with us. So pick a side.’ Photograph: Aamer Anwar & Co/PA

The simple response that anyone unschooled in the profession of psychology might arrive at might be: Islam, pure and simple as it was in its inception. Conquest by the scimitar. Now the AK47 will do nicely. Moderate-sized penknives can be useful for beheadings. But that definitely is not the response being sought.