Terrorism has always been a mainly male affair, and ISIS was one of Kenya’s least concerns as East Africa is thousands of kilometres away from its hotbed in the Middle East.
But when three suspected female terrorists were shot dead by police as they tried to attack the Mombasa Central Police Station, two facts were conspicuous: women and terrorism.
The recent 14 Riverside terror attack that has claimed 21 lives so far has stamped the reality that women like their male counterparts are a risk to the security of the country.
Police are currently in pursuit of a prime suspect who is the wife of one of the terrorists linked to the attack at the Dusit hotel.
Sources believe she is on the run after learning police are pursuing her
Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigation’s office told the Star the wife who lives in Eastleigh switched off her phone moments after she heard reports that she had been arrested.
“She had not been arrested as per the media reports but we were going for her in Eastleigh. Unfortunately, she changed the direction from where she was heading and started moving towards the Thika road side. Her phone then went off and we couldn’t continue trailing her,” said the detectives.
ISIS was the first and still remains the only terror group to have claimed responsibility for the botched Mombasa raid in September 2016 even though Al-Shaabab, which has carried out several large-scale attacks in Kenya in recent years, was initially thought to be responsible.
As details continue to unravel about the three attackers, the scary reality that girls and women are being lured to join terror groups is now a hot topic among various stakeholders.
The major concern is what the future holds for Kenyans, now that there are all indications that women terrorists are “graduating” from simply helping male militants behind the scenes to taking an active role in attacks.
An alarming concern is that the women being radicalised are youths in their marriage age, according to Mr Adan Osman, the director of the De-radicalisation Department at the Mandera county government.
A government report released last year said girls are made to view terrorism as a noble cause.
“The girls attracted to these groups are generally in the adolescent-young adult category. They tend to have a romantic notion about the lives of the extremists,” the report said.
In the Mombasa attack, Ms Maimuna Abdirahman Hussein, Ms Ramla Abdirahman Hussein and Ms Tasnim Yakub Abdullahi Farah approached the station posing as ordinary citizens who had come to file a complaint with the police.
Two police officers at the reporting desk then asked one of the women to remove her veil to reveal her face. She reportedly defied the order and jumped over the counter, holding a dagger that she had concealed under her buibui.
A witness, Ms Salma Mohammed, said one officer was stabbed in the neck and chest, prompting his female colleague to flee. The same attacker then doused herself with petrol and set herself on fire. The three women were later shot dead.
While investigators try to solve the puzzle of this single incident, the bigger picture is far from pretty.
As reports of young women embracing terrorism emerge, there is also a crop of worried parents.
A common concern among parents is that they are no longer able to keep track of who their children are communicating with — and the fact that terror groups are using the Internet to recruit is scary.
Are parents unable to take care of their children nowadays?