My first thought turned out to be singu�larly inappropriate: that with those huge, beautiful burning eyes and long, thick, dark eyelashes, the girl gazing at the television camera through the slit of her fullface veil could be advertising mascara.

My first thought turned out to be singularly inappropriate: that with those huge, beautiful burning eyes and long, thick, dark eyelashes, the girl gazing at the television camera through the slit of her fullface veil could be advertising mascara. Instead, the 18-year-old from the Gaza Strip was being interviewed by the BBC about her new job: she'd just graduated from a programme to train female suicide bombers. It's the fulfilment of an ambition she's held for years, she casually told the reporter.

With the fragile ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians likely to break down any day, Israeli soldiers entering Gaza must hope they don't bump into this newly-wed in her fully-loaded bomb belt with detonators at the ready. But she's equally ready to kill Israeli civilians, even children. After all, she says: "Children are civilians but they grow up to become soldiers."

Was this young woman in her "martyr's headband" a hoax, a publicity stunt put up by Islamic Jihad to add a sickening touch of glamour to their murderous campaign? She certainly didn't appear to be, answering questions in a chillingly calm voice: "If we just throw stones at the Jews, they get scared. Imagine what happens when body parts fly at them."

Her words are reminiscent of another would-be Palestinian suicide bomber, a 28-year-old mother of five called Hiba, who once said: "If the world does not defend us, we have to defend ourselves with the only thing we have - our bodies."

We can't help but recoil from what are intended as heroic statements, for the same reasons that we find the idea of doctors mounting terrorist attacks in Britain not only repugnant but contradictory. Such people defy society's expectations of them as carers, not killers, as life givers, not life takers.

Muslim suicide terrorism dates back to around the eleventh century but female suicide bombers are relatively new. The first recorded case was in Lebanon in 1985 when 16-year-old Khyadali Sana targeted an Israeli army unit, killing two soldiers. Since 2002, there have been 10 suicide bomb attacks by women in the Palestinian territories and in this year alone there have been 30 female suicide bombings in Iraq.

Chechen separatists publicise their use of Black Widows and the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka have been famous for them since 1991 when a female Tamil separatist blew up herself and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. But these are predominantly nationalist as opposed to religious movements.

The use of Muslim women as suicide bombers used to be forbidden (because it was seen as immodest). This seems to have changed in 2004 after Palestinian clerics ordained that if one nation violates another, everyone, including women, has a duty to fight back. This was partly a pragmatic response. Women wearing abayas could more easily conceal bombs and were less likely to be searched at checkpoints.

There are two ways of interpreting the increasingly female face of terror. The first is to shrug and see it (like ladette culture in the west) as the inevitable consequence of female empowerment.

Chechen female suicide fighters, like those who staged the Moscow theatre siege, see themselves as taking power into their own hands to take revenge for the loss of family members.

The Tamil Tigers, who have probably the highest number of female suicide bombers in the world, see it as an expression of gender equality.

They emphasise martyrdom as something that can be bestowed equally on men and women.

In Gaza, female suicide bombers have become celebrities, their martyrdom videos played over and over again.

I'm sure the young would-be human bomb with the long eyelashes wanted us to see her in this light but the carefully-staged propaganda exercise left me with nagging doubts. When the families of female Palestinian suicide bombers are interviewed, their stock line is that it is a response to their intolerable life on account of the Israeli occupation. But often these women who are dying to kill have very traumatic personal stories. They are vulnerable and broken and see no way out of their situation.

A Tamil woman, detained before she had an opportunity to detonate her belt, had been left motherless at three and been raped by her father at age seven, before being forcibly drafted into the Tamil Tigers by relatives. While some men seek martyrdom, with a great fanfare from their families, women such as this one seem to end up as bombers for lack of alternatives. Their situation is complex but they are as much victims as villains.

In Iraq, half of the female suicide bombers this year have come from Diyala, where tribal and patriarchal culture remain strong and women are little more than chattels.

US military intelligence divides female bombers into three categories: women who have lost family members in clashes with US or Iraqi forces, especially widows, who are considered a burden on society; Sunni women who have adopted the takfir ideology (that Shias are no longer true Muslims); and women married off to al Qaeda fighters and frequently passed from one to another, leaving them feeling worthless.

There are two particularly pathetic stories. The first is of the spotty teenager Rania Ibrahim, discovered wearing 44lbs of explosives at a checkpoint in Baquba, north of Baghdad. Between protestations that suicide and murder would take her straight to paradise to join her al Qaeda fighter husband, the 15-year-old cried for her mother.

Anyone tempted to interpret these bombings as young girls acting out of idealism and free will would do well to remember the co-ordinated attacks on two Baghdad pet markets in February by two women with Down's syndrome, whose bomb belts were detonated remotely using mobile phones. Condoleezza Rice may have been right to describe it showing al Qaeda to be "the most brutal and bankrupt of movements" but the capacity of such attacks to spread fear and attract media attention is undeniable.

Western feminists seem reluctant to criticise developments like this out of a misplaced notion of cultural relativism and political correctness. The same applies to the continuing scandal of female genital mutilation.

We must speak out. Islamic Jihad is not some mirror image of what the Israelis are doing in Gaza or the Allies in Iraq.

It is a movement that seeks to create a medieval-syle Caliphate under Sharia law that will eventually take over the world. It is an ideology that would abolish democracy and free speech and deny women education, independence and the freedom to choose their own partners. That is why those who plotted to blow up the Ministry of Sound nightclub in 2004 chose ladies' night. As one Jihadist website put it, they wanted "all those slags dancing around" to be burned alive.

Girls such as Miss Eyelashes are cruelly manipulated and hopelessly deluded. They need decent education, help to escape from grinding poverty and support from moderates within their own societies. Some need shelter and rehabilitation. All of them need the most precious commodity of all: hope.