Al Qaeda’s New Women’s Magazine: Guns, Facials and Niqabs

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Cover of Al-Shamikha.

Al Qaeda has designed a new U.S.-style women’s magazine that, according to the Atlantic, “offers home and beauty tips alongside testimonials from the wives of suicide bombers and female jihadists.”

The magazine is called Al-Shamikha (which, reportedly, loosely translates to ‘The Majestic Woman’) and the cover of the first issue features a woman in a niqab and the barrel of a submachine gun. The UK Independent reports that inside the magazine are admiring interviews with martyr’s wives, alongside more traditional lady mag articles such as “the pros and cons of honey facemasks.”

(More on TIME.com: Al-Qaeda Woman? Putting Aafia Siddiqui on Trial)

This new magazine comes nine months after another Al Qaeda magazine was launched, that time in English. Inspire could be described as a general interest magazine for aspiring jihadists, that featured articles like the one titled “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”

The editor’s note in Al-Shamikha reportedly explains the idea behind the mag: “The nation of Islam needs women who know the truth about their religion and about the battle and its dimensions and know what is expected of them.” (via Independent)