There is yet another stamp of India in terrorist activities inside Pakistan; the female suicide bombers which were first introduced by India in Sri Lanka through LTTE or the Tamil Tigers as the Sri Lankan insurgents are known. Probably they have nothing to do with Taliban who have always been accused of condemning the womenfolk to the four-walls of the house. They did not approve of any role for the fair sex in any activity except pleasing the husbands and raising children. It was for this reason that women who dared to come out of their houses during Taliban regime in Afghanistan were forcibly sent back. Even the widows and destitute women were not allowed to work for earning livelihood. But now it seems that Taliban have decided to make use of the special status of the women and the symbols of Muslim culture specific to women. Burqa, for example, which is in Muslim women use can be used as a lethal tool for carrying out terrorist activities. It was a common perception that Taliban still do not approve of any role for women and they only use burqa to disguise the suicide bombers as was done by them in 2007 crisis of Lal Masjid, Islamabad.

But the Long War Journal has reported that Taliban and al Qaeda have established female suicide bombing cells in remote areas of northwestern Pakistan and northeastern Afghanistan. The female suicide bombers have struck in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The existence of the cells, which appeared evident after female suicide bombers attacked twice over the past five months in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was confirmed by a 12-year-old Pakistani girl named Meena Gul who said she was trained to be a “human bomb,” and that women suicide bombers were trained for their deadly task in small cells on both sides of the porous border and were dispatched to their missions with a sermon, ‘God will reward you with a place in heaven.

Gul said her cell was led by Zainab, her sister-in-law, who dressed as a man and fought alongside the Taliban against Pakistani troops. Prior to the two attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, there have been no recorded instances of female suicide bombers carrying out attacks in either country. A female suicide bomber struck for the first time in Afghanistan in Kunar province on June 21, 2010. Two US soldiers were killed and two Afghan children were wounded in the attack. Gul claimed her younger sister carried out that attack.

The next female suicide attack took place on Dec. 24, 2010, in Pakistan’s tribal agency of Bajaur. The suicide bomber killed 42 Pakistani civilians in an attack at a World Food Program ration distribution point. The Taliban and al Qaeda cells are under the command of Qari Zia Rahman, the dual-hatted Taliban and al Qaeda commander who operates on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border. Qari Zia claimed credit for the June 2010 suicide attack in Kunar.

Qari Zia is the Taliban’s top regional commander as well as a member of al Qaeda. He operates in Kunar and in neighboring Nuristan province in Afghanistan, and he also operates across the border in Pakistan’s tribal agency of Bajaur. Earlier this year, the Pakistani government claimed they killed Qari Zia in an airstrike, but he later spoke to the media and mocked Pakistan’s interior minister for wrongly reporting his death.

Qari Zia is closely allied with Faqir Mohammed, the Taliban’s leader in Bajaur, as well as with Osama bin Laden. Qari Zia’s fighters are from Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and various Arab nations. He commands a brigade in al Qaeda’s paramilitary Shadow Army, or the Lashkar al Zil, US intelligence officials have told The Long War Journal.

Who are these Taliban? Are they the same breed which brought death and destruction for Afghanistan? If they are the same Afghan Taliban finding excuse for every extremist act in Islam, then they are not followers of Islam, for sure. They are the true followers of Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka who were equipped and funded by India.