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Gender, insurgency, and terrorism: introduction to the special issue

four-year military operation to flush out the Islamic State from its territory in Iraq and Syria ended as the last village held by the terrorist group was retaken in March 2019 . . . ’.1 In the months that preceded this final takeover in Baghuz, Syria, ISIS was dwindling in strength. Over a thousand fighters and civilians, including many Islamic State militants’ wives and children have fled.2 One thing among many that stood out was the fact that Western women, who once traveled to Iraq and Syria wanted to return. Such accounts of Western women who joined ISIS, the muhajirats are regularly featured in news reports now. American Hoda Muthana was 20, when she left Alabama to join ISIS. Kimberly Gwen Polman, 46 studied legal administration in Canada before joining ISIS and had dual US and Canadian citizenship.3 Shamima Begum, a 19-year-old woman who left Britain in 2015 to join the ISIS wanted to return home in February 2019 as IS was losing its foothold in Syria and Iraq. In 2015, she and two of her classmates from Bethnal Green in east London flew to Turkey from Gatwick airport and then boarded a bus to the Syrian border. They were known as the Bethnal girls and became the face of young women drawn to jihadist girl-power subculture.4 A pertinent question that arises out of these cases is – why these women joined the ISIS and were willing to travel to Syria and Iraq?

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