Women in Fundamentalist Terrorist Organisations as a Threat to Security

Abstrakt

Today, terrorism is undoubtedly one of the major threats to international security. This is confirmed by the fact that the United States Department of State classifies more than 50 groups as terrorist organisations (The United States Department of State Website).

In the context of the terrorist threat, we can witness an increasing number of women, especially in the organisations that radically interpret the Quran (Koran) on which Islam is based.

The aim of the article was to explore the phenomenon of women’s participation in the activities of fundamentalist terrorist groups.

The main research problem took the form of a question: To what extent do women in fundamentalist terrorist organisations influence the level of security? The main hypothesis, however, took the form of an assumption that the increase in the scale of women’s participation in terrorist organisations of a fundamentalist nature determines, in the context of the terrorist phenomenon, the growing threat to security on their part. The article presents the determinants of women’s terrorist activity and their main functions performed within the structures of terrorist organisations.

As the main research method, the analysis of literature and Internet media with the use of content analysis techniques, as well as statistical data analysis (desk research) were applied.

The research was carried out as part of the research project No. 146/WNB/65/DzS called: The Migration Policy of the Republic of Poland as an Indicator of Its Internal Security carried out at the Faculty of Security Studies at the General Tadeusz Kościuszko Military University of Land Forces (Wrocław, Poland).