MOSCOW -- Animalistic labels stick to terror. Adolf Hitler's commandos were called werewolves; terrorist cells in Turkey in the 1970s, gray wolves; now the Russian media have christened Chechen female suicide bombers black widows.
That's a troubling metaphor. Few people are unafraid of spiders; nobody is immune to spider venom. The spider is a traditional enemy of humans, like the shark, wolf and snake. Until it attacks, it is practically invisible, and you come across it in the most unlikely places such as your own bathroom.
According to the Russian government, the Chechen terrorist underground has created a special female suicide squad, consisting mostly (but not exclusively) of women whose relatives were killed by Russian troops in Chechnya. Something similar is happening in the Middle East, with Palestinian women attacking civilian targets in Israel. Female terrorism has made big news worldwide, although a student of history is aware of the fact that the cradle of terrorism was rocked not by men but by women.