Since March 2014, 71 individuals have been charged with ISIS-related activities, 56 were arrested in 2015 alone, a record number of terrorism-related arrests for any year since 9/11 according to the report from George Washington University’s Program on terrorism.
Although a majority of ISIS recruits and supporters tend to be male, an alarming number of women are joining the terrorists group and helping to carry out its takfiri agenda.
Researchers identified 300 American and/or US-based ISIS sympathizers who use social media to radicalize new recruits. About one third of those accounts were operated by women, according to the report.
"A handful of studies have attempted to identify the reasons why ISIS’s ideology attracts a growing number of Western women. While some of these motivations are identical to that of their male counterparts (i.e. the search for a personal identity and the desire to build a strict Islamic society), others are specific to women, the report says."
The role of women in the ISIS varies, according to the report, “from propaganda disseminators and recruiters to those as the ‘wife of terrorist husband’ and ‘mother to the next generation.’”
The findings come as investigators are increasingly looking into possible terror connections Tashfeen Malik, the female shooter in the attack on the Inland Regional Center in San. Bernardino, Calif., may have had.
It was revealed on Thursday that Malik, a Pakistani, pledged her allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Facebook as she and her husband, Syed Farook, carried out the deadly shooting, killing 14 people.
Authorities believed the couple may have been radicalized by terrorists either in the US or during trips to the Middle East, including to Saudi Arabia.
The FBI is handling the massacre as a counter-terrorism investigation, but has not yet concluded the motive behind the attack. Authorities said there is evidence to suggest the couple was radicalize, but they have found no definite ties to any terror cells. Washingtontimes reported.
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