Al Qaeda's new weapon: Women

New warnings that Al Qaeda is recruiting women of "non-Arab" appearance to attack targets in the U.S. and the U.K. are reportedly unnerving law enforcement agencies. The key fear: These female terrorists, said to be trained in Yemen by the same Al Qaeda cells who backed Nigerian "Christmas bomber" Umar Abdulmutallab, could travel using Western passports. While female suicide bombers have struck in Israel and Iraq, they've never attacked the West. How does this revelation change the rules in the War on Terror? (Watch an ABC report about female suicide bombers)

This proves how foolish racial profiling is: The initiative to screen "people who look like terrorists” has created loopholes Al Qaeda can exploit, says Jed Lewison at Daily Kos, and it only succeeded in telling "terrorists exactly who we are looking for." It's no surprise that Al Qaeda would focus on training female would-be bombers who could “slip through the cracks of our security system."

"Reason #10,263 that we need profiling"

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The U.S. needs to regroup against an emboldened Al Qaeda: When you consider the female suicide-bomber reports along with the "chilling" news that several people from the no-fly list have attempted to board U.S. flights in the past few days, says Clifton B at Another Black Conservative, it's clear the Yemen-based wing of the terrorist organization is "stepping up their game." The American authorities' "piss poor handling" of the Flight 253 "Panty Bomber" has clearly given Al-Qaeda renewed confidence.

"Female suicide bombers may be headed to the US"

We can't respond adequately without better intelligence: U.S. authorities knew that the Flight 253 bomber was likely only "one of multiple would-be terrorists" trained in Yemen, says an editorial in the Tacoma News Tribune, but the their failure to properly question Abdulmutallab means we "may never get that intelligence." This "stunning display of soft-headedness" must never be repeated, or "other attacks may follow."

"Next terror attack, hold the Miranda warning

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SEE MORE OF THE WEEK'S RECENT TERRORISM COVERAGE

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