BRUSSELS — On the street, Malika El Aroud is anonymous in an Islamic black veil covering all but her eyes. In her living room, Ms. El Aroud, a 48-year-old Belgian,
wears the ordinary look of middle age: a plain black T-shirt and pants and curly brown hair. The only adornment is a pair of powder-blue slippers monogrammed in gold
with the letters SEXY.
But it is on the Internet where Ms. El Aroud has distinguished herself. Writing in French under the name “Oum Obeyda,” she has transformed herself into one of the most
prominent Internet jihadists in Europe. She calls herself a female holy warrior for Al Qaeda. She insists that she does not disseminate instructions on bomb-making and has
no intention of taking up arms herself. Rather, she bullies Muslim men to go and fight and rallies women to join the cause. “It’s not my role to set off bombs — that’s
ridiculous,” she said in a rare interview. “I have a weapon. It’s to write. It’s to speak out. That’s my jihad. You can do many things with words. Writing is also a bomb.”
Ms. El Aroud has not only made a name for herself among devotees of radical forums where she broadcasts her message of hatred toward the West. She also is well
known to intelligence officials throughout Europe as simply “Malika” — an Islamist who is at the forefront of the movement by women to take a larger role in the
male-dominated global jihad.
The authorities have noted an increase in suicide bombings carried out by women — the American military reports that 18 women have conducted suicide missions in Iraq
so far this year, compared with 8 all of last year — but they say there is also a less violent yet potentially more insidious army of women organizers, proselytizers,
teachers, translators and fund-raisers, who either join their husbands in the fight or step into the breach as men are jailed or killed. “Women are coming of age in jihad
and are entering a world once reserved for men,” said Claude Moniquet, president of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. “Malika is a
role model, an icon who is bold enough to identify herself. She plays a very important strategic role as a source of inspiration. She’s very clever — and extremely
dangerous.”
Ms. El Aroud began her rise to prominence because of a man in her life. Two days before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, her husband carried out a bombing in Afghanistan
that killed the anti-Taliban resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud at the behest of Osama bin Laden. Her husband was killed, and she took to the Internet as the widow of
a martyr. She remarried, and in 2007 she and her new husband were convicted in Switzerland for operating pro-Qaeda Web sites. Now, according to the Belgium
authorities, she is a suspect in what the authorities say they believe is a plot to carry out attacks in Belgium.
“Vietnam is nothing compared to what awaits you on our lands,” she wrote to a supposed Western audience in March about wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Ask your
mothers, your wives to order your coffins.” To her followers she added: “Victory is appearing on the horizon, my brothers and sisters. Let’s intensify our prayers.” Her
prolific writing and presence in chat rooms, coupled with her background, makes her a magnet for praise and sympathy. “Sister Oum Obeyda is virtuous among the
virtuous; her life is dedicated to the good on this earth,” a man named Juba wrote late last year.
Changing Role of Women
The rise of women comes against a backdrop of discrimination that has permeated radical Islam. Mohamed Atta, the Sept. 11 hijacker, wrote in his will that “women must
not be present at my funeral or go to my grave at any later date.” Last month, Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s second in command, said in an online question-and-answer
session that women could not join Al Qaeda. In response, a woman wrote on a password-protected radical Web site that “the answer that we heard was not what we had
hoped,” according to the SITE monitoring group, adding, “I swear to God I will never leave the path and will not give up this course.”
The changing role of women in the movement is particularly apparent in Western countries, where Muslim women have been educated to demand their rights and Muslim
men are more accustomed to treating them as equals. Ms. El Aroud reflects that trend. “Normally in Islam the men are stronger than the women, but I prove that it is
important to fear God — and no one else,” she said. “It is important that I am a woman. There are men who don’t want to speak out because they are afraid of getting
into trouble. Even when I get into trouble, I speak out.”
After all, she said, she knows the rules. “I write in a legal way,” she said. “I know what I’m doing. I’m Belgian. I know the system.”
