Shakhidat Baymuradova, a rifle slung on her back, fought alongside her husband in the ranks of Chechen rebels until he was killed by Russian troops in 1999.
This month, her hair tucked in a hijab or Muslim headscarf, she strapped explosives to her waist and blew herself up at a Muslim festival where pro-Moscow officials had gathered. At least 16 people were killed.
Baymuradova, 46, whose first name translates as "martyrdom" in Arabic, was the latest in a string of female suicide bombers to strike in Chechnya over the last year -- a frightening new form of rebel action in a decade-old conflict.
Women have traditionally been excluded from the fighting that has razed Chechnya, on Russia's southern fringe. Suicide attacks were almost unheard of in the first years of fighting.
But the "black widows" have become a new threat to Moscow, already shaken by almost daily losses.
Baymuradova's suicide attack on May 14 -- an assassination attempt on a top pro-Moscow official who in the end escaped unhurt -- also killed her woman accomplice.
Two days earlier, another woman was part of an attack in the region's usually peaceful north, driving a truck packed with explosives into a government complex.
"We are witnessing an escalation of the violence in Chechnya," said Salambek Maigov, a rebel envoy to Moscow.
"Seeing that Moscow's promises are empty, people are taking extreme measures. The Kremlin has finally lost control of the situation in Chechnya."
Kremlin officials dismiss the women, saying they act in isolation, bankrolled by mercenaries.
They say a March referendum, which showed overwhelming popular support for Chechnya remaining part of Russia, showed the region is on track for Moscow's peace plan which calls for elections for a regional president and assembly.
"All terrorist acts committed by kamikaze suicide bombers are organized by Arab mercenaries," Ilya Shabalkin, a spokesman for Russia's anti-terrorist operations in Chechnya, said after Baymuradova's attack. "They use this same tactic in Israel."
But Chechen rebel leaders describe the attacks as the illustration of widespread despair in the region, where they say the much-publicised vote has had little impact on real life.
"I cannot see any religious meaning behind these actions," rebel envoy Akhmad Zakayev said by telephone from London.
"They spring from a desire for revenge," he said.
Kheda Yusupova, from the village of Urus-Martan southwest of the Chechen capital Grozny, said grief made women easy prey.
"These women are motivated only by vengeance, and the rebels use this," Yusupova told reporters. "It is only revenge. All the rewards on this earth are irrelevant for a person burdened with grief."
The first major suicide attack in the region came in June 2000, early in Russia's second campaign to contain separatist fighters in the region.
Two women drove a truck crammed with explosives into a local police building -- one was Khava Barayeva, a relative of guerrilla leader Movsar Barayev who orchestrated last year's siege of a Moscow theater in which 129 people died.
Barayeva's attack was so novel that it was recorded in song by one of Chechnya's most popular artists.
The idea that women could fight for the Chechen cause did not hit home for most Russians, however, until the Moscow siege.
Several young women fighters appeared on footage aired on national television after Russian special forces ended the siege with a powerful gas before shooting the rebels.
Their faces covered by the Muslim hijab, they lolled dead in their seats. Most, said hostages who had spoken to them during the siege, had lost men folk in the war.
In a refugee camp in Ingushetia, on Chechnya's western border, another refugee, who refused to give her name, said four of her sons had been captured in Russian raids.
"I have only one son now, who is 11. He thinks only of avenging his brothers," she said. "Sometimes I would also like to blow myself up in the middle of a group of Russian soldiers. I would not be sorry for them."
Zakayev, a spokesman for Chechnya's fugitive separatist president Aslan Maskhadov, said there would be more bombings as extreme factions of Chechnya's separatist movement -- including warlord Shamil Basayev -- gained prominence.
"We have said we are ready to talk without conditions," Zakayev said. "Basayev says Chechnya can only be freed through war."
Maskhadov, in exile since Russian troops poured back into Chechnya in 1999 after three years of de facto independence, long called on the Kremlin to negotiate.
With Moscow's refusal, he now says there is no point in holding talks.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the