On September 11, far away from the memory of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, another set of would be killers hoped to make history of their own.
A few minutes after midday, three women, two of them sisters, left a tiny flat in Mombasa’s Kibokoni estate with no intention of ever going back alive.
Their minds were made up. They came up with an ingenious plan to cause hell on earth, but believed it would guarantee them passage to heaven.
At around 12.30pm, the seemingly distressed women walked the 200 metres from their house, through Old Town to Mombasa’s Central Police Station and asked for the records desk. They were there to report a crime, so they said.
But as soon as the first policeman was near enough, one of the women removed a dagger from under her hijab and stabbed the officer several times. The other two, according to police reports, lit and hurled petrol bombs inside the station.
In less than a minute, Tasnim Yakub Abdullahi Farah and sisters Ramla Abdulrahman Hussein and Maimuna Hussein lay dead in pools of blood.
Ultimately, even the bullet proof vests under their robes could not stop the bullets. But had the siege lasted a minute longer, the damage could have been worse. The three had suicide vests.
Little is known about Tasnim, who is believed to be an orphan who once lived in Changamwe. It is not clear whether the three women prayed at any mosque or came under the influence of some radicals, but authorities now believe they were active on the Internet within jihadist circles after intercepting chatter between the girls and Jihadi groups.
Maimuna and Ramla lived a reclusive life, according to sources who indicated that their parents forbade any of the sisters from leaving home without permission. The parents even installed WiFi in the house to dissuade them from going to look for Internet services outside.
Then they suddenly went missing from home that Sunday morning and by the time the parents were reporting their disappearance, the two were already dead.
Before they sneaked out of their home, however, the sisters wrote a letter to their parents and ISIS using the names Umm Sa’ad, Umm Maysarah and Umm Ma’abad.
The choice of Umm Ma’abad, in particular, raises a question as to why one of the women chose a name of the one of the most respected women during prophet Muhammad’s life.
“It was clear there is a message they were sending to other female would-be recruits, either encouraging them to read Islamic history or emulate their actions,” says an analysts who asked not to be named.
Letter to parents
The women’s letter, retrieved by SITE, an organisation that monitors jihadist activity, reads, “To our families, we know you’ll be shocked by our act, but we know that Allah and His messenger and jihad in His Cause are more beloved to us than you and ourselves.”
A Twitter message retrieved by the intelligence organisation on September 12 alleges the women posted a handwritten message in English, bidding farewell to their families and justifying why they had to strike at Kufaar or infidels.
“We pledge allegiance to the caliph of the Muslims, the Amir of the believers Abu Bakr al Baghdadi Al Hussayni Al Qurayshi, “ reads the purported message by the three women. The message also declared that “by God’s will” the whole world would come under the rule of Islamic law.
The message, which The Standard on Sunday cannot independently confirm, also quotes the women swearing at the Kenyan state, accusing it and its security system of oppressing Muslims.
“...filthy Kenyan government, don’t think we’ve forgotten how you mercilessly killed our brothers, how you raided our Masjid on 2nd February 2014 (MAsjid Musa) and how your prisons are filled with innocent brothers and sisters,” says the statement that also threatens to “cast terror” into the hearts of the infidels, turn the wives of Kenyan state officials into widows and “your children into orphans.”
Sociologists say many women are easily swayed into the life of a jihadi bride because of the romanticisation of the role.
“They have all these lofty ideas of a life with little to no rules where you interpret life and religion in a manner that suits you. They do not know the amount of servitude and suffering that will accompany this decision,” sociologist Loice Okello says.
“After rebelling from one authority, mostly parents and school, they find themselves under the yoke of an even worse authority.”
Apparently, Ramla, 19, and Maimuna, 25, had also declined to acquire Kenyan ID cards or discarded them, despite being of eligible age. Ramla had just applied to join the Technical University of Mombasa.
Close family members told The Standard on Sunday that the two siblings had shredded all their pictures in family albums and, over the past two years, refused to have any photos of them taken.
Security analysts now say authorities have until recently ignored the role of women in jihad circles and their capacity to take part in war. But the government says all is being done to deal with what seems like an evolution of terrorism in the country.
“The recruiters always look for the vulnerable. They have now moved to try and get women to engage in these crimes. The government, through the National Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism programme, is addressing factors that will stem this trend,” Interior Ministry Spokesman Mwenda Njoka said.
Jihadist women in the country have mainly been used to provide operational assistance, including recruiting or acting as messengers from one jihadist group to the other.
But have their motivations changed over the years?
“There are few cases in the history of Islam where women have been involved in actual combat. One that comes to mind is the battle of camel,” said Dr Hassan Mwakimako, a lecturer of Islamic Studies at the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Pwani University.
Comforters of fighters
He said female jihadists in the region mostly played the role of comforters of male fighters or jihad brides, although radicalised. He added that in other parts of the world women have carried out attacks.
“It is unprecedented locally, but it is not a new phenomenon in other parts of the world. Islamic teaching disdains women who engage in actual combat,” Mwakimako said.
Although some analysts say the three had links with Jaysh Al Ayman, an Al Shabaab unit in Mombasa, others say they may have been motivated by fiery Islamic teaching by slain Muslim cleric Aboud Rogo.
But last Tuesday, the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack. This constitutes the group’s first attack in the Kenya.
The group’s Amaq news agency said “supporters of Islamic state” were responsible for Sunday’s attack.
“For these ladies to have reached this level, it must have taken a lot of grilling or manipulation for so long. They were motivated by hatred, feelings of persecution, marginalisation or past violence of their rights or people close to them,” lawyer Abubakar Yusuf said.
“Most of them think these acts are based on faith and Islamic teaching as ordained by Allah.”
Abubakar represents Haniya Saggar, Rogo’s widow, who is in police custody suspected of having a connection to the Mombasa attacks.
Detectives claim she was in communication with Tasnim, the presumed mastermind of the attack. Investigations by The Standard on Sunday show, however, that the three have followed the footsteps of several women proclaiming Jihad who have come before them.
The most known being Samantha Lewthwaite also known as White Widow blamed for some of the bloodiest terrorist attacks in Kenya. Several women, including highly trained professionals, are on trial in Kenya charged with planning to enter Somalia or aid terrorism.
