( CNN ) -- The first time I viewed an al Qaeda recruitment video , I squinted at a scratchy black blob shimmying across the screen . It took a moment to recognize this was an amateur effort to obliterate the image of a woman from a clip of a politician 's visit to Saudi Arabia . The blob was evidently his wife . I wondered at the time it must have taken to erase her from every frame . Of all the rapid-fire images of death and destruction in the video , I found this one the most chilling . That same feeling surfaced in the days after Seal Team Six killed Osama bin Laden two years ago . I watched talking heads on every network hold forth on the takedown . Almost without exception , they were men . I felt like my female colleagues had been erased from the picture . In the 1990s it was largely women who tracked the threat from bin Laden , who pieced together slivers of data to form a surprisingly accurate picture of an international terror network that had yet to announce its existence to the world . When Greg Barker interviewed me for the documentary `` Manhunt , '' he asked what it was that made women so good at tracking terrorists . I felt a moment of panic at being led into the minefield of gender stereotypes . I worried about discounting the efforts of some excellent male counterterrorism analysts I had known . Then I thought to myself , `` Yes , women do have a special genius for the job . '' To step firmly into the stereotype minefield , is it because terrorism is all about relationships ? Perhaps . Using the Boston bombing as an example , let 's look at the mother and how she may have influenced the older son who in turn could have influenced the younger one . At this moment analysts are following that circle of relationships outward , looking at other friends and family members . Analysts are trying to suppress their own egos and put themselves into the minds of the suspected terrorists . What do I need to carry out this attack and to whom do I turn for help ? Suppressing one 's ego is an important part of being a good counterterrorism analyst . First , you have to be willing to admit up front what you do n't know . The amount of data is so large that no one individual can look at all of it . A good analyst acknowledges her blind spots and networks with other analysts to fill them . Bergen : Bin Laden dead , bin Ladenism lives . When it comes to ego suppression , women are just better at it than men . They 've had more practice . I ran across one man who never admitted to any gaps in knowledge . Whenever someone would try to tell him something , he would blithely say , `` I knew that . '' He did n't last long as a counterterrorism analyst . Another characteristic of the women who tracked bin Laden is that they did n't have their egos so caught up in their `` careers '' that they let it affect their jobs . For an analyst , the path to career advancement lies through a `` hot account , '' which means a subject that attracts policymaker interest . Al Qaeda was not a hot account in the 1990s . Some managers resented the amount of time the women spent on it . On career appraisals , one report written for the policymaker often counted for more than months spent sifting through data and working with counterparts on the clandestine side of the house . Their careers suffered because the women were so focused on the job of tracking al Qaeda . These women had the intellectual discipline and honesty to allow their conclusions to arise from the data , rather than taking the shortcut of cherry-picking the data to fit preconceived notions . For whatever reason , women are particularly good at perceiving patterns in a nonstop stream of seemingly random data . Terrorism analysis requires persistence , tenacity , patience and dedication . The women who tracked bin Laden had those characteristics in spades . In the days after 911 , one analyst was working 18-hour days despite severe back pain . When she finally took the time to go to a doctor , she found out she had a broken vertebra . Then she went back to the office and continued to work the long hours . These women broke down in tears , struggled with guilt , depression and the physical impact of stress . They juggled the job with the demands of motherhood , eldercare and other personal issues that do n't disappear after a terrorist attack . Through it all they continued to do their jobs , because , by God , they were n't going to let that bastard bin Laden win . I have one urgent request for the CIA , FBI and other relevant agencies . After the next attack , could you please send a woman to talk to the press ? You have lots of them and , trust me , they know what they 're talking about . Please do it to improve the morale of your female officers and give their daughters a better understanding of their options in life . The women are tired of being invisible . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Susan Hasler .
Susan Hasler : Too often role of women in counterterrorism is de-emphasized . She says women were instrumental in early days of search for bin Laden . The analysts proved better at understanding relationships and at suppressing ego , she says . Hasler : Agencies should put female analysts in spotlight when attacks happen .