> I don't think anybody asserted that they did it
> _because_ they were stoned. The drugs supposedly are
> used to facilitate the act. The story makes perfect
> sense to me. It would certainly explain a lot about
> the Chechen Black Widows.
>
Los Angeles Times February 4, 2004 Cult of Reluctant Killers The 'black widows' of Chechnya -- suicide bombers who stalk Russia -- are driven by hatred, ideology, coercion and fear. By Kim Murphy Times Staff Writer
GROZNY, Russia — Medna Bayrakova remembers the day a middle-aged woman showed up at her door and asked to speak to her 26-year-old daughter. They shut themselves in the bedroom for half an hour, and then her daughter left, saying she was walking the visitor to the bus stop.
(snip)
Seven women have launched suicide attacks against Israel, the first one in January 2002. By that time, Russia had already recorded two such attacks, and since then their numbers have grown. More than three dozen Chechen women — roughly half of the suicide bombers — have launched or attempted attacks against Russian targets since the second Chechen war began in 1999. Russian authorities say many appear to be dazed and under the influence of drugs; some would-be bombers have reported that they were forced by relatives in the Chechen resistance into attempting such attacks.
(snip)
Muzhikhoyeva, whose husband was killed fighting the war while she was pregnant with their daughter, told her interrogators that she had been "a virtual slave" to rebels who convinced her that it was her religious duty to go to Moscow and detonate a bomb at a cafe on busy Tverskaya Street. Investigators told the Moscow paper Kommersant that a woman Muzhikhoyeva knew as Lyuba — Black Fatima — took her to a house near Moscow and visited her frequently during the next week. She told police that Lyuba often gave her orange juice that made her dizzy and gave her a headache.
On the last day, she said, Lyuba gave her more juice, handed her a rucksack containing a bomb and showed her how to set it off.
(snip)
Alexei Zakharov, who heads Moscow's Research and Applied Science Center and specializes in the psychology of extreme situations, has interviewed would-be black widows in Russian custody and said many have reported having been drugged. All, he said, demonstrated signs of mental trauma.
The fact that they often are literally widows is telling, he said, because of a sense that they have become a burden on their husbands' families.
"Sometimes these women are told: 'You've been a sinner all your life. Allah punished you by taking your husband. Now it's time to restore yourself by doing your duty.' "
http://home.wlu.edu/~goluboffs/260/chechnya_womenkillers.html
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