What is "shahidka"

Shahidka (— Russian feminine gender derivation from shahida), sometimes colloquially referred to as "Black Widow" or Chyornaya Vdova in Russian, is a term for Islamist Chechen female suicide bombers, willing to be a manifestation of violent jihad. They became known at the Moscow theater hostage crisis of October 2002. The commander Shamil Basayev referred to the shahidkas as a part of force of his suicide bombers called the Riyad-us Saliheen Brigade of Martyrs. Basayev also stated that he himself trained at least fifty of the black widows.

The term of "Black Widows" probably originates from the fact that many of these women are widows of men killed by the Russian forces in Chechnya. (The toxic connotation of black widow spider is intended.) In 2003, the Russian journalist Julia Jusik coined the phrase "Brides of Allah" (Невесты Аллаха) when she described the process by which Chechen women were recruited by Basayev and his associates; the phrase was also used again after the Beslan attack, as the title of an installment of the Russian NTV programme Top Secret (Совершенно секретно).