The United Arab Emirate's first female pilot led a mission this week against ISIS in Syria, according to the UAE ambassador to the United States. 
 
 Interested in ? Add as an interest to stay up to date on the latest news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest 
 
 Major Mariam Al Mansouri, 35, was the first woman to join the Emirati Air Force. The UAE this week joined the United States, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain in implementing airstrikes against ISIS. 
 
 US Strikes ISIS Targets in Syria: Here's What 'Successful' Coalition Airstrikes in Syria Look Like 
 
 WATCH: What Do Airstrikes in Syria Mean for ISIS Hostages? 
 
 AP 
 
 Born in Abu Dhabi, Mansouri is one of eight children. She told Deraa Al Watan magazine recently that her family supported her career goals, but she had to overcome gender stereotypes along the way. It likely helped that she graduated from high school with a 93 percent grade average. 
 
 She attended UAE University, the first of the three government-sponsored universities in the country, and received a degree in English literature. She graduated from Zayed Air College in 2007 and is an operations pilot who works with F-16 Block 60 aircraft, according to Abu Dhabi's English language news outlet, The National. 
 
 The UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba confirmed on the talk show "Morning Joe" today that Mansouri led the airstrike. 
 
 "I can officially confirm that the UAE strike mission on Monday night was led by female fighter pilot Mariam Al Mansouri,” Al Otaiba. “She is fully qualified, highly trained, combat-ready pilot, and she led the mission.” 
 
 Emirates News Agency/WAM/AP Photo 
 
 As she underwent training, Mansouri previously said there was no difference in assignments for men and women, and she tried not to focus on her male colleagues. 
 
 "Competing with oneself," she told Deraa Al Watan magazine, "is conducive to continued learning." ||||| DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The first female air force pilot in the United Arab Emirates led airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Syria earlier this week, the federation's ambassador to Washington said on Thursday as he pledged his country will do "whatever is necessary" to defeat the militant group. 
 
 In this June 13, 2013 photo provided by the Emirates News Agency, WAM, Maj. Mariam al-Mansouri, the first Emirati female fighter jet pilot, right, walks with other pilots at an undisclosed location in... (Associated Press) 
 
 This June 13, 2013 photo provided by the Emirates News Agency, WAM, shows Mariam al-Mansouri, the first Emirati female fighter jet pilot gives the thumbs up as she sits in the cockpit of an aircraft,... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this June 13, 2013 photo provided by the Emirates News Agency, WAM, sMaj. Mariam al-Mansouri, the first Emirati female fighter jet pilot prepare to take off, in United Arab Emirates. A senior United... (Associated Press) 
 
 Social media has been buzzing with rumors that F-16 pilot Maj. Mariam al-Mansouri played a part in attacks against the jihadist group, with many users taking delight in the rebuke it implied toward the militants' ultraconservative ideology. 
 
 Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba's comments were the first public confirmation of her role. 
 
 "She is a fully qualified, highly trained, combat-ready pilot, and she led the mission," al-Otaiba said during an appearance on American cable channel MSNBC's "Morning Joe." The Emirati embassy quickly posted word of the diplomat's confirmation on its official Twitter feed. 
 
 The Emirates, a seven-state federation that includes the capital of Abu Dhabi and the Mideast commercial hub of Dubai, is one of five Arab countries that have joined the U.S.-led coalition carrying out the airstrikes in Syria. It is a major buyer of American-made weapons, with an arsenal that includes F-16 fighter planes and Apache attack helicopters. 
 
 Al-Mansouri was born in Abu Dhabi and graduated from the country's Khalifa bin Zayed Air College in 2007, according to a profile earlier this year in the government-owned newspaper The National. She is one of eight children and has a degree in English literature. 
 
 "Sorry #ISIS, I know this too much and so harsh but it's real," taunted Twitter user @kafrev, which purports to represent an opposition-held town in Syria, using an alternate name for the Islamic State group. "A woman bombed you!" 
 
 Emirati leaders have taken steps to raise the status of women in the oil-rich country, which has modernized rapidly since its formation in 1971 and is now home to a cosmopolitan blend of foreign businesspeople, expatriate professionals and low-paid migrant workers who together far outnumber the local population. 
 
 While traditional values remain strong and men dominate government posts, Emirati women have served as government ministers, police officers and executives in state-linked companies. 
 
 Al-Otaiba linked al-Mansouri's role to the campaign to defeat the Islamic State group. 
 
 "Do you want a model or a society that allows women to become ministers in government, female fighter pilots, business executives, artists? Or do you want a society where if a woman doesn't cover up in public she's beaten or she's lashed or she's raped? This is ultimately what this breaks down to," he said. 
 
 It is important that moderate Arab and Muslim nations take a stand against the Islamic State militants, al-Otaiba said, describing the group as "a threat to our way of life." 
 
 "We will bring whatever is necessary to defeat ISIS," he added. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Adam Schreck on Twitter at www.twitter.com/adamschreck ||||| On Wednesday, Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle attempted to do a nice segment on "The Five" about the United Arab Emirates' first female fighter pilot. Fellow hosts Greg Gutfeld and Eric Bolling cut in with titty jokes because ha ha, the pilot is a lady doing a man's job, ha ha ha. 
 
 "Major Mariam Al Mansouri is who did this," Guilfoyle reported, noting that Mansouri led the UAE's airstrikes on ISIS. "Very exciting ... A woman doing this ... I hope that hurt extra bad because in some Arab countries women can't even drive." 
 
 Gutfeld then interrupts with, "The problem is after she bombed it she couldn't park it." Eric Bolling follows up: "Would that be considered boobs on the ground or no?" 
 
 Being a woman who works at Fox News sounds fun. ||||| Police in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, have arrested a burka-clad woman who stabbed an American teacher to death in a lavatory outside Waitrose. 
 
 Ibolya Ryan, a 47-year-old mother of three who lived in Denver before moving to the UAE, was taken to hospital after the frenzied attack on Monday, but later died of her injuries. Her husband Paul, from whom it is thought she was separated, was travelling to the Gulf to be with their 11-year-old twins - their third child was not living in the country. 
 
 Vithi Cuc, a Vietnamese restaurant worker, told The National newspaper that she heard two women arguing in the disabled lavatory, while she was using the adjacent lavatory. 
 
 “Women go to the bathroom together and gossip, talk and argue all the time,” said Ms Cuc. “But then I heard one of them threatening the other saying 'Sit down or I’ll kill you’.” 
 
 Ms Cuc said she then heard banging sounds from the cubicle. 
 
 “I heard one of them try to call out for help. By this time there were three of us outside the lavatory and one of us ran to get security. When the female security guard arrived they told us to leave the bathroom. I was so scared and frightened for her,” she said. 
 
 CCTV footage showed the woman fleeing the Boutik Mall on Reem Island in central Abu Dhabi – leading to the killer being dubbed “The Reem Island Ghost”. 
 
 The killer had waited in the bathroom for 90 minutes until Mrs Ryan arrived, and stabbed her repeatedly with a kitchen knife. 
 
 Saif Bin Zayed, minister of the interior for the United Arab Emirates, told a press conference that the “face covered” suspect seen in security footage fleeing the scene of the crime is an Emirati national now in police custody. 
 
 He called the murder “a slap to every noble human value that the UAE cherishes - which are derived from the teachings of Islam and the genuine Arab heritage.” 
 
 “We stand today before a crime that is alien to our secure country - a crime that has disregarded all human values and norms and targeted innocent people,” he said. 
 
 He said the attacker targeted her victims based on their nationality alone in an attempt to create chaos and terrorize the country. 
 
 “The victim of this brutal crime was a school teacher who was committed to building strong future generations and was known for her dedication to work. The victim was not only a teacher - she was also a mother of three children.” 
 
 The detained woman is also suspected of planting a bomb outside a 46-year-old American-Egyptian doctor’s home on Abu Dhabi Corniche, according to police, after the murder. Investigators found bomb-making materials at the suspect’s home, said Colonel Rashid Borshid of the Abu Dhabi police’s criminal investigation department. 
 
 The bomb was dismantled and no one was hurt, he said. 
 
 When asked if the police considered this sequence of events to be a terrorist attack, he said: “This is under investigation now, and I cannot say yes or no now.” 
 
 But on Twitter, known Islamic State fanatics were praising the murder, describing it as “Dabiq epic” - in reference to the town of Dabiq, a place in Syria that is supposed to be the location for one of the final battles according to certain Muslim myths about a final apocalypse. It is also the name of Isil’s propaganda magazine. 
 
 And Abu Dhabi’s police celebrated the arrest by compiling a Hollywood-style video of the woman being detained, edited with the soundtrack to the Batman film The Dark Knight, and showing the raid on her grandiose, white colonnaded home. 
 
 On Twitter, some questioned the suitability of the soundtrack. 
 
 “These Abu Dhabi police vides are getting more COPS every day. The headcams. The soundtrack. Sheesh,” said Ben Hubbard, Middle East correspondent for the New York Times. 
 
 Victoria Scott, editor at large for Doha News, tweeted: “The security video of the Abu Dhabi mall stabbing is chilling enough without a musical soundtrack. What was the security firm THINKING?” 
 
 Others, meanwhile, praised the police for their quick response. 
 
 The murder has shocked the expat community in the UAE – where 76 per cent of the country's 2.4 million people are expats. A total of 100,000 Britons live in the UAE, with a million passing through each year. 
 
 Violent crime is relatively rare in Abu Dhabi although there have been attacks on foreigners elsewhere in the region. 
 
 In Saudi Arabia on Saturday, a Canadian was stabbed while he shopped at a mall in Dhahran on the Gulf coast. 
 
 Last month, a Dane was shot and wounded in Riyadh – an attack IS claimed on Monday was carried out by its supporters. 
 
 And the Abu Dhabi murder comes little more than a month after US embassies in the Gulf, including the UAE, called for vigilance when a post on a jihadist website encouraged attacks on American and other international schools there, specifically on teachers. 
 
 The embassy said on October 29 that it was "unaware of any specific, credible threat against any American or other school or individual in the United Arab Emirates." 
 
 “Nonetheless, the Mission is working with local schools identified with the United States to review their security posture,” it said. “US citizens residing in or visiting the UAE should remain vigilant regarding their personal security.” 
 
 The murder also took place on the same day as a recording attributed to Isil spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani urged Muslims to attack Westerners by any means, even if only to “spit on their faces”.
– If a country's going to send military pilots to fight ISIS, it's going to send its very best. Which is why the United Arab Emirates selected Maj. Mariam Al Mansouri, 35—the first female fighter pilot in the Emirates air force—to lead one of its airstrike missions in Syria on Monday, ABC News reports. The UAE ambassador to the US appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe today and confirmed Mansouri's involvement, saying, "She is [a] fully qualified, highly trained, combat-ready pilot, and she led the mission." Mansouri—who was born in Abu Dhabi and has seven siblings, according to Deraa Al Watan magazine via ABC—says that she tried not to focus on the male pilots sitting next to her during her intensive training. "Competing with oneself is conducive to continued learning," she says. She also holds a degree in English literature from Khalifa bin Zayed Air College, the AP reports. "Do you want a model or a society that allows women to become ministers in government, female fighter pilots, business executives, artists?" the ambassador asked, as per AP. "Or do you want a society where if a woman doesn't cover up in public she's beaten or she's lashed or she's raped?" Two male panelists on Fox News' The Five are catching flak from Gawker and others over their women-can't-park and boob jokes in the wake of the report.