http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/22/female-suicide-bomber-iraqInside the mind of a female suicide bomberAn increasing number of female jihadis are being recruited and trained to blow themselves up in the name of Islam. Alissa J Rubin visits an Iraqi jail to find out what makes young women turn themselves into killing machines
Alissa J Rubin
The Observer, Sunday 22 November 2009
In Baquba, the Iraqi police detective flipped pointlessly through a file on his desk; the daylight was too faint to read by and the electricity had long since gone off. He seemed about to say something. Then a bomb exploded a few blocks away, and his office shook. The radios on his desk crackled. He nodded to his colleagues, and they ran into the hall to join police officers already rushing to the site of the explosion. As he rose to follow them, the detective – Major Hosham al-Tamimi, then director of the National Investigation and Information Bureau – indicated the file before him.
"You will like Baida," he said. It was a curious thing to say about someone who sought to kill people like him and like me. He added, almost pensively: "I like Baida. She is… honest."
Baida is one of 16 female would-be suicide-bomber suspects or accomplices who have been captured by the police in Diyala province since the beginning of 2008; almost as many have blown themselves up. When I first met Baida in February, she had already been in jail more than two months. She was in the same cell as another would-be suicide bomber, Ranya, who was 15 when she was caught on her way to a bombing, her vest already strapped on. Ranya's mother was also in the jail because she was believed to be connected to those involved in trying to organise Ranya's death.
Nowhere, it seems, have more women blown themselves up in so short a time as in Iraq, where there have been some 60 suicide bombings attempted or carried out by women, the majority of them in 2007 and 2008 – the numbers, for men as well as women, are lower this year, though the attacks continue. It is difficult to learn much about suicide bombers since there is rarely anything left of them.
Each woman's story is unique, but their journeys to jihad do have things in common. Many have lost close male relatives. Baida and Ranya lost fathers and brothers. Many of the women live in isolated communities dominated by extremists, where radical understandings of Islam are the norm. In such places, women are often powerless to control much about their lives; they cannot choose whom they marry, how many children to have or whether they can go to school beyond the primary years. Becoming a suicide bomber is a choice of sorts that gives some women a sense of being special, with a distinguished destiny. But Hosham urged me not to generalise: "All the cases are different. Some are old; some are young; some are just criminals; some are believers. They have different reasons." snip
Hosham was right. I liked Baida immediately. She had an open face and pale skin, a medium build and an unassuming manner. Her black veil was simple. A few strands of light brown hair strayed out, suggesting that, while conservative, she was not rigid. She seemed educated and told her story in a straightforward way.
She began in a soft voice: "My name is Baida Abdul Karim al-Shammari, and I am from New Baquba near the general hospital. I am one of eight children; five were killed. The police raided our home. It was a half-hour before dawn during Ramadan. The Americans were with them."
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