WASHINGTON — Islamic State propaganda is resonating with a growing and loyal following of young women and teenagers, complicating U.S. counterterrorism efforts to identify and monitor supporters such as Tashfeen Malik, the 29-year-old mother suspected in the California shootings along with her husband.
It’s unusual for a woman to be involved in mass violence in the United States. But the increasing number of women drawn to the Islamic State is worrisome to American law enforcement and making it almost impossible to flag the prototypical recruit for investigation. Even harder to detect: a husband and wife team, like the one blamed for Wednesday’s shootings in San Bernardino, that doesn’t need to use a telephone for attack-plotting.
Before the most recent attacks, the Anti-Defamation League had identified 15 women linked to Islamic extremist activity in 2014 and 2015 — a higher total than in the entire prior decade. A recent George Washington University report on the Islamic State found that one-third of the nearly 300 Twitter accounts of U.S.-based Islamic State sympathizers monitored during a six-month period appeared to be operated by women.
Most recruits had tried to join the Islamic State on its home turf, including three teenage girls from Colorado who were intercepted in Germany last year and a 19-year-old Mississippi woman who the FBI says set off with her love interest before being stopped at a regional airport. Others are accused of planning violence: In New York, two women were charged in April with plotting to build a bomb for an attack.
“Unlike in the Middle East or even Europe, it is indeed rare for a woman to be involved in such a shooting in the U.S.,” said Oren Segal, director of the ADL’s Center on Extremism. He said the Islamic State “has made it a priority to reach and recruit women. … We are starting to see the results of those efforts.”
