Hala Al-Qahtani
THERE is no study on the reasons that encourage women to commit crimes in Saudi Arabia. It may be because all major crimes in the country were committed by men for a long period. We cannot see women in other parts of the Arab world involved in heinous crimes since the catastrophic Raya and Sakeena incident.
But incidents in recent years have proved that criminal behavior and evil motives are equally prevalent among women. The only difference was in style. When a criminal is afraid of something, he either disappears or disguises by shaving his beard or hair. But for female criminals, they need not shave their beard. They can hide an explosive belt under the veil and a gun under their feet.
She can sit like a queen covering her crime putting more black clothes on her body to give a spiritual aura and hide her crime. However, she would not escape from punishment. We know that even the wanted criminals use abaya (the black cloak) to evade security officers.
Police have arrested most of these criminals but they still believe that they are smarter than security forces. This shows the floundering and foolishness of criminals.
We cannot believe that criminal motives among women developed abruptly. Actually, they may have developed over the years since childhood as a result of wrong practices and living in an extremist environment where people frighten others using gunfire while children are denied of happy occasions.
In such environment women could develop extremist thoughts and would consider those who oppose their ideology as infidels and could reject their opponents fiercely. Such women would not have any hesitation to declare the state as infidel and kill Muslims praying at mosques considering it as a great service to her religion.
After Arwa Al-Baghdadi was able to run away and join Al-Qaeda terrorist organization in Yemen, we have seen Reema Al-Jarish making provocative statements against the Saudi government and pushing her 15-year-old son to fight alongside the jihadists in Syria. We were surprised when a well-known female teacher known as the divorcee of Sajir ran away with her three sons to the conflict zone last year.
Nada Al-Qahtani also declared that she was joining Daesh terror group and pledged her allegiance to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Mee Al-Talq and Ameena Al-Rashid also ran away from the Kingdom after collecting money and gold for the terror group but were arrested with their six children by security forces in Jazan while trying to cross Yemen border.
Wafa Al-Shahri, wife of the vice president of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, disappeared from her Saudi home in 2009 and left for Yemen with her three children. Her first husband and second husband then gave petitions to the Yemeni government to repatriate their children.
Hala Al-Qaseer is another Saudi woman wanted for terrorism. Saudi authorities have made 18 charges against her including joining of Al-Qaeda, transferring SR2 million and gold to fund terror in and outside the Kingdom and attempt to smuggle Wafa Al-Shahri. We will not forget the professor of Islamic jurisprudence at King Saud University who ran away with her three sons to Yemen, then to Iraq.
After the arrest of Abeer Al-Harbi, the number of women arrested on terrorism charges increased from nine to 11. Many people may not know about the 10th woman, known as Almuhajira who was sentenced to six-year jail by a criminal court last week. The court banned her from traveling abroad for six years after release. She had not only adopted the deviant ideology of Al-Qaeda but also declared the Saudi state as infidel and pledged allegiance to Ayman Al-Zawahiri, leader of Al-Qaeda, and praised Al-Baghdadi, leader of Daesh, through the social media. She also acknowledged that she had received a call from a terror suspect whose name appears in the 47-member wanted list issued by the Interior Ministry. Above all, she also encouraged others to kill the interior minister.
We should be extra cautious when we see increasing number of women supporting and financing terror. We should not belittle the criminal motives of women saying this is the maximum they can do. In our society, women live in a secret world and we don’t know what is in their minds. Many women fall in the trap of donations with good intentions.
Women should be cautious and take things seriously and think a thousand times before giving their money to charitable organizations. They should make sure that their money does not land in the hands of suspicious groups that support and finance terror.
