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Allah's Angels: Chechen Women in War
In this comprehensive portrait of the women of Chechnya in modern war, Paul Murphy challenges conventional thinking on why they fight and are willing to kill themselves in the name of Allah. His book covers the two wars with Russia in 1994 and 1999 and the present conflict with Islamic Jihadists. It argues that these wars forced Chechen women to venture far beyond their traditional roles and advance their human rights but that the current movement championing traditional Islam is taking those rights away. Drawing on personal interviews, insider resources, and other materials, Murphy presents powerful portrayals of women who fight in the Chechen Jihad, including snipers, suicide bombers and the mysterious "Black Widows," as well as women who collect intelligence, hide arms, and perform other non-combatant roles.
- GenresTerrorism
320 pages, Hardcover
First published October 15, 2010
6 people are currently reading
132 people want to read
About the author
Paul J. Murphy
6 books2 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Paul J. Murphy, Ph.D., is a former U.S. government senior counterterrorism official who lived, worked, and traveled extensively in Russia, the North Caucasus, and Central Asia between 1994 and 2001. He has studied in the former Soviet Union, and worked in civil society development, higher education, and business in Russia. As a U.S. congressional special adviser on Russia in 2002, he dealt with issues related to counterterrorism cooperation between the United States and Russia.
Paul J. Murphy, Ph.D., is a former U.S. government senior counterterrorism official who lived, worked, and traveled extensively in Russia, the North Caucasus, and Central Asia between 1994 and 2001. He has studied in the former Soviet Union, and worked in civil society development, higher education, and business in Russia. As a U.S. congressional special adviser on Russia in 2002, he dealt with issues related to counterterrorism cooperation between the United States and Russia.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 24, 2025
A tedious, cold, and insensitive report of what befell the Chechen women during the two wars. It reads like a roll call of names from a morgue ledger. As little expected from a U.S. government counterterrorism “expert” working in liaison with the Russian State Duma, the narrative is wrought with discrepancies and factual mistakes. The author admitted in the preface to drawing information from Anna Politkovskaya’s works but seems to (intentionally?) miss out on some of her details that might have added some nuance to this discourse. Also, the author seems pretty ignorant of Chechen culture and the Islamic faith. Referring to the Quranic concept of “iddah” (a period that a woman observes after the death of her husband), the author readily labeled it as a “Wahhabi tradition,” despite it being universal among all strands of Islam.
Prior to relating the ‘accomplishments’ of Russians in Chechnya, our author finds it necessary to drop this valuable caveat, which must be kept in mind while reading their feats:
Later on, our author seems to recant his earlier assertions, albeit unintentionally. Answering the burning question of “Why women kill themselves,” he first ‘debunked’ two prevalent myths: that most female suicide attacks are committed by either grieving black widows or out of personal revenge. Myths dispelled, one might wonder what would be the answer to such a perplexing question. THE WAHHABI GENIEEEE!!! Yes, had it not been the Wahhabis who had pried upon the vulnerable ones — i.e., divorcees, widows, rape victims, the ugly ones — because they are expendable in Chechen society, and had they not recruited/rizzed them by manipulating, drugging, raping, and even bribing and buying them from their families, there wouldn't have been that many suicide attacks. As long as the “evil heart of Basayev is beating,” there will be no respite. Such explanations are not unfounded among the GWOT experts.
Alas, if it wasn't for the patriarchal Chechen culture and Wahhabi manipulation, we would have heard more of those Netflix-esque love stories like that of Gulya and Morozov, for which our author had dedicated quite some pages. Gulya, a naïve Chechen girl, eloped with a Russian soldier serving in Chechnya. Our Romeo, out of his besottedness, plundered entire Chechen villages just to refurbish a house for his Juliet. How utterly romantic! Isn’t it?
Prior to relating the ‘accomplishments’ of Russians in Chechnya, our author finds it necessary to drop this valuable caveat, which must be kept in mind while reading their feats:
“What would you do if you were a half-starved and scared eighteen-year-old draftee in a strange land at night under heavy mortar fire coming from a ‘sleeping’ village? Probably shoot back like Russian private Arkady Babchenko did.”After a patronizing lament of the plight of pitiful Chechen women under the patriarchal Chechen society in the opening chapter, our author, in a classical white knight’s style, wrenched the agency from the Chechen women. So the next few chapters seem to implicate that a Chechen woman resorting to violence (suicide attacks) is either a spontaneous and emotional deed of a grieving woman who has lost everything and finds it apt to end her miserable life, or a manipulated, naïve girl who is rizzed up by a macho Wahhabi man — “made her his lover, manipulated her every thought, plied her with narcotics, and finally sacrificed her.” Not for once did it cross the mind of our author that a Chechen woman might have an independent resolve, guided solely by her own judgment, to give hell to the Russkies who had brought destruction upon her compatriots.
Later on, our author seems to recant his earlier assertions, albeit unintentionally. Answering the burning question of “Why women kill themselves,” he first ‘debunked’ two prevalent myths: that most female suicide attacks are committed by either grieving black widows or out of personal revenge. Myths dispelled, one might wonder what would be the answer to such a perplexing question. THE WAHHABI GENIEEEE!!! Yes, had it not been the Wahhabis who had pried upon the vulnerable ones — i.e., divorcees, widows, rape victims, the ugly ones — because they are expendable in Chechen society, and had they not recruited/rizzed them by manipulating, drugging, raping, and even bribing and buying them from their families, there wouldn't have been that many suicide attacks. As long as the “evil heart of Basayev is beating,” there will be no respite. Such explanations are not unfounded among the GWOT experts.
Alas, if it wasn't for the patriarchal Chechen culture and Wahhabi manipulation, we would have heard more of those Netflix-esque love stories like that of Gulya and Morozov, for which our author had dedicated quite some pages. Gulya, a naïve Chechen girl, eloped with a Russian soldier serving in Chechnya. Our Romeo, out of his besottedness, plundered entire Chechen villages just to refurbish a house for his Juliet. How utterly romantic! Isn’t it?
July 7, 2024
Awful and dispassionate recite of atrocities lived by Chechen women and girls. There is little to no analysis of why this happened, what does it say about Chechen society or how and why Chechen women reacted. They are merely bodies (maimed or dead) in this book. Ridiculous spelling mistakes in Polish words prove that author did very little research into this part of Europe and did not care about editing or proof-reading – I can only imagine how he crippled Chechen and Russian names. Do not get me started on citations or lack thereof. Overall, Chechen women deserved better. Very disappointing read. And I really do not care what Murphy thinks about beauty of women he describes – whether they are ugly, voluptuous or looking young for their age (eeek!).
June 25, 2017
The Chechen wars (1994-6 and 1999-2009, sort of) were brutal for everyone involved. But for Chechen women, they were particularly devastating. "Allah's Angels" documents their participation and their suffering.
Getting hard data about almost any aspect of the Chechen wars can be an exercise in frustration--even things that are supposedly monitored carefully by the government, such as Russian troop casualties, are underreported and vary wildly, depending on whom you ask--and so it is not surprising that this book does not have a lot of numbers to it. While it would have been nice to have some more statistics, especially a gender breakdown of casualties and participants in the wars, Murphy admits straight out that such information is impossible to come by, and so he relies largely on anecdotal evidence, providing numbers when and where he can. This makes it difficult to draw too many conclusions from the book, but it is still an impressive piece of research--he spent several years interviewing subjects and tracking down information, and the book is full of stories that otherwise would have remained untold, giving another perspective on these wars. Although it is largely a compilation of stories and incidents rather than a single narrative, and as such is more of an academic read rather than a literary one, it is full of fascinating information for anyone interested in this topic.
It's also highly disturbing. Chechen women have traditionally experienced, and continue to experience, a number of conflicting problems that not only prevent them from governing their own lives, but often put them in physical danger. Chechen society has traditionally been highly patriarchal and male-dominated; women and girls are said to be valued--providing they remain chaste, obedient, and devoted to their families. In such cases, they are to be provided for and protected from physical harm, and even have the ability to stop fighting between men by their very presence.
The reality, of course, is different: even women who scrupulously maintain their chastity and obedience can end up married, often at a very young age, to abusive husbands, with no recourse for divorce or escape, and the presence of women has in no way stopped the fighting that has racked Chechnya for the past 20 years. Women who are labeled promiscuous can be kicked out of their homes--or worse. Bride kidnapping has been and continues to be a significant problem, and once a girl has been kidnapped, her chastity is suspect and she may be forced to marry her kidnapper even if she has no wish to. And that's just during peace time.
With the wars, things became dramatically worse. Murphy chronicles how many, many women became accidental casualties of the violence: Russian forces carried out massive strikes against villages and towns, largely populated by noncombatants, and Chechen forces retaliated by committing terrorist bombings in urban areas. Furthermore, with many Chechen men off fighting, and the rest under suspicion, it was women who were the primary point of contact with Russian forces, which led to widespread abuse from Russian soldiers, and accusations of impurity from their own men as a result. Some women feared sexual assault so much, and quite legitimately, that they carried hand grenades tucked in their clothes, planning to commit a murder/suicide if Russian troops attempted to attack them.
Most disturbingly of all, perhaps, was the increasing involvement of Chechen women in the Chechen resistance movement. Not because I believe that women fighting is any more disturbing than men fighting, but because many of the women were brought into the movement against their will. Murphy recounts several instances of teenage girls being kidnapped, or even sold by their families, and then forced or brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers, sometimes after they had been raped by their own men in order to make them desperate enough to kill themselves. Other women, including a number of the women who participated in the siege at the Dubrovka theater, had been set up with arranged marriages to male fighters, who then considered them their chattel and required them to cook, clean, and when the occasion called for it, fight and die for the Chechen resistance. There were also women who did volunteer to become suicide bombers or snipers, either for money or out of religious and patriotic conviction; many of them ended up dead too, sometimes as the result of grotesque sexual torture at the hands of their Russian interrogators.
Nonetheless, these wars, just as WWI and WWII did for Western women, did give many Chechen women a certain amount of empowerment. With the men absent, many women took on more control at home and become financially and emotionally independent. Other women--perhaps the most powerful--gained influence, paradoxically, through their devotion to Wahhabism, and rose high in the ranks of the Chechen resistance movement. In either case, Chechen women, like their sisters the world over, proved themselves to be more than capable as heads of household, business managers, and fierce guerrilla fighters.
Unfortunately, the results for women have not been altogether good. Even the most influential of the female fighters on the Chechen side were still subordinate to their male leaders, and many of the women--young girls, really--were nothing more than sacrificial pawns. This is particularly unfortunate given that it is hard not to wonder if, had women had more direct decision-making power, some of the worst excesses could have been avoided. Almost half the hostage takers at Dubrovka were female; eye witness accounts say that many of them did not want to die themselves, nor did they want to kill their hostages, and they tried to reassure the hostages and make their situation easier by giving them water, bathroom breaks, and so on. And in the end, the women did not set off their suicide bombs, possibly because they couldn't, but also possibly because they didn't want to. Later, at Beslan, the two women known to have participated in the hostage taking there died early on as the result of an argument with their commander over killing children: the women were staunchly against it. Although I doubt that having more women in charge would have prevented the wars or the terrorist incidents entirely, one can't help but wonder if they would have been less likely to deliberately kill children. As for the Russian side, having all-male units perform the cleansing operations and interrogations was a recipe for disaster on multiple levels.
Be that as it may, the wars are over now, and Chechen society is starting to rebuild. Murphy describes the anti-war movements run by Chechen women, and their attempts to be involved in the rebuilding of their nation. Unfortunately, now as earlier, they are caught in a double bind: Ramzan Kadyrov's regime has instituted a number of oppressive and exploitative measures, including mandatory headscarf wearing and official proclamations that women are their husbands' property and must be meek and obedient. Chechen men, devastated by the war and angry and unnerved by the changing gender roles it brought about, have by and large been happy enough to go along with this rising tide of misogynistic oppression. Women therefore have to choose between a show of loyalty to their Chechen traditions at a time when the nation is just starting to rebuild after a two-decade holocaust, and standing up for their own rights.
Murphy's interviews paint a grim picture of Chechen women's past and also their potential future, but give a necessary perspective on the experience of a nation whose influence on current events is all out of proportion to its geographical size. Certainly a must-read for anyone interesting in Chechen studies.
Getting hard data about almost any aspect of the Chechen wars can be an exercise in frustration--even things that are supposedly monitored carefully by the government, such as Russian troop casualties, are underreported and vary wildly, depending on whom you ask--and so it is not surprising that this book does not have a lot of numbers to it. While it would have been nice to have some more statistics, especially a gender breakdown of casualties and participants in the wars, Murphy admits straight out that such information is impossible to come by, and so he relies largely on anecdotal evidence, providing numbers when and where he can. This makes it difficult to draw too many conclusions from the book, but it is still an impressive piece of research--he spent several years interviewing subjects and tracking down information, and the book is full of stories that otherwise would have remained untold, giving another perspective on these wars. Although it is largely a compilation of stories and incidents rather than a single narrative, and as such is more of an academic read rather than a literary one, it is full of fascinating information for anyone interested in this topic.
It's also highly disturbing. Chechen women have traditionally experienced, and continue to experience, a number of conflicting problems that not only prevent them from governing their own lives, but often put them in physical danger. Chechen society has traditionally been highly patriarchal and male-dominated; women and girls are said to be valued--providing they remain chaste, obedient, and devoted to their families. In such cases, they are to be provided for and protected from physical harm, and even have the ability to stop fighting between men by their very presence.
The reality, of course, is different: even women who scrupulously maintain their chastity and obedience can end up married, often at a very young age, to abusive husbands, with no recourse for divorce or escape, and the presence of women has in no way stopped the fighting that has racked Chechnya for the past 20 years. Women who are labeled promiscuous can be kicked out of their homes--or worse. Bride kidnapping has been and continues to be a significant problem, and once a girl has been kidnapped, her chastity is suspect and she may be forced to marry her kidnapper even if she has no wish to. And that's just during peace time.
With the wars, things became dramatically worse. Murphy chronicles how many, many women became accidental casualties of the violence: Russian forces carried out massive strikes against villages and towns, largely populated by noncombatants, and Chechen forces retaliated by committing terrorist bombings in urban areas. Furthermore, with many Chechen men off fighting, and the rest under suspicion, it was women who were the primary point of contact with Russian forces, which led to widespread abuse from Russian soldiers, and accusations of impurity from their own men as a result. Some women feared sexual assault so much, and quite legitimately, that they carried hand grenades tucked in their clothes, planning to commit a murder/suicide if Russian troops attempted to attack them.
Most disturbingly of all, perhaps, was the increasing involvement of Chechen women in the Chechen resistance movement. Not because I believe that women fighting is any more disturbing than men fighting, but because many of the women were brought into the movement against their will. Murphy recounts several instances of teenage girls being kidnapped, or even sold by their families, and then forced or brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers, sometimes after they had been raped by their own men in order to make them desperate enough to kill themselves. Other women, including a number of the women who participated in the siege at the Dubrovka theater, had been set up with arranged marriages to male fighters, who then considered them their chattel and required them to cook, clean, and when the occasion called for it, fight and die for the Chechen resistance. There were also women who did volunteer to become suicide bombers or snipers, either for money or out of religious and patriotic conviction; many of them ended up dead too, sometimes as the result of grotesque sexual torture at the hands of their Russian interrogators.
Nonetheless, these wars, just as WWI and WWII did for Western women, did give many Chechen women a certain amount of empowerment. With the men absent, many women took on more control at home and become financially and emotionally independent. Other women--perhaps the most powerful--gained influence, paradoxically, through their devotion to Wahhabism, and rose high in the ranks of the Chechen resistance movement. In either case, Chechen women, like their sisters the world over, proved themselves to be more than capable as heads of household, business managers, and fierce guerrilla fighters.
Unfortunately, the results for women have not been altogether good. Even the most influential of the female fighters on the Chechen side were still subordinate to their male leaders, and many of the women--young girls, really--were nothing more than sacrificial pawns. This is particularly unfortunate given that it is hard not to wonder if, had women had more direct decision-making power, some of the worst excesses could have been avoided. Almost half the hostage takers at Dubrovka were female; eye witness accounts say that many of them did not want to die themselves, nor did they want to kill their hostages, and they tried to reassure the hostages and make their situation easier by giving them water, bathroom breaks, and so on. And in the end, the women did not set off their suicide bombs, possibly because they couldn't, but also possibly because they didn't want to. Later, at Beslan, the two women known to have participated in the hostage taking there died early on as the result of an argument with their commander over killing children: the women were staunchly against it. Although I doubt that having more women in charge would have prevented the wars or the terrorist incidents entirely, one can't help but wonder if they would have been less likely to deliberately kill children. As for the Russian side, having all-male units perform the cleansing operations and interrogations was a recipe for disaster on multiple levels.
Be that as it may, the wars are over now, and Chechen society is starting to rebuild. Murphy describes the anti-war movements run by Chechen women, and their attempts to be involved in the rebuilding of their nation. Unfortunately, now as earlier, they are caught in a double bind: Ramzan Kadyrov's regime has instituted a number of oppressive and exploitative measures, including mandatory headscarf wearing and official proclamations that women are their husbands' property and must be meek and obedient. Chechen men, devastated by the war and angry and unnerved by the changing gender roles it brought about, have by and large been happy enough to go along with this rising tide of misogynistic oppression. Women therefore have to choose between a show of loyalty to their Chechen traditions at a time when the nation is just starting to rebuild after a two-decade holocaust, and standing up for their own rights.
Murphy's interviews paint a grim picture of Chechen women's past and also their potential future, but give a necessary perspective on the experience of a nation whose influence on current events is all out of proportion to its geographical size. Certainly a must-read for anyone interesting in Chechen studies.
July 21, 2025
A crucial and blood soaked account of the women fighters, women victims, and women martyrs of post-Soviet Chechnya and its violent history. The author provides Islamic and regional stressors that make the life of a woman hard. It gives the brief stories and examples of those fighting the Russians as armed combatants, warriors, and even suicide bombers. It also emphasizes the familial, religious, and interpersonal stress these women must endure almost daily (whether voluntarily or involuntarily). Another really good book by Paul Murphy. Russia's Islamic Threat by Gordon Hahn and Wolves of Islam by Paul Murphy are great additions to anyone interested in this ordeal. Thanks.
November 17, 2024
While the story’s in this book are incredibly important i found the writing to be lacking and the book incredible hard to get through. There was also very little analysis as to why these thinks were happening. No mention of the Ardakhar Genocide or other events that led us to this moment.
April 10, 2012
Using this book for research for my Senior Thesis about female terrorists in Chechnya, but I really found it interesting! Definitely something to pick up and look into.
Of particular note are the White Stocking Snipers, a group of female snipers named not after pantyhose, but rather for white sport pants worn by skilled Soviet sharpshooters in the Baltics. Oh, and their classic trademark is a bullet to the crotch.
Of particular note are the White Stocking Snipers, a group of female snipers named not after pantyhose, but rather for white sport pants worn by skilled Soviet sharpshooters in the Baltics. Oh, and their classic trademark is a bullet to the crotch.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews