Black Widows and Children’s Games

There is one way for Muslim women in Iraq to achieve equality with men: they are free to blow themselves up and take other people with them:

Al-Qaeda has decided to enlist widows to carry out suicide bombings in Iraq, according to a study by the Voices of Iraq news agency.

During the last three months, six suicide attacks were carried out by women. A total 10 women have carried out suicide attacks in Iraq since April 2003, according to statistics from the United States army.

As recently as Wednesday, a woman blew herself up in volatile Diyala province, killing five people. On Monday, a female suicide bomber blew herself up among a group of civilians in the holy Shia city of Karbala, killing 47 people and wounding 75 others.

These two recruits were established by police to be middle-aged and recently widowed, so obviously AQI sets up the grieving and vulnerable to create constant and unpredictable public turmoil:

The majority of female suicide bombers come from Anbar and Diyala provinces, the report said.

“Al-Qaeda is active in those two provinces, and military operations that kill this organisation’s elements are also active there,” the report cited sociologist Fari al-Obedi as saying.

“The majority of female bombers’ motivations are getting revenge for a deceased husband or family member, or due to religious extremism,” he said.

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The women are recruited and trained by men, but are much more effective, because police have not been searching women, the report noted. The fact that many are veiled will make searching them more difficult, it said.

This one has an easy technological solution: a way to detect bomb material that doesn’t involve having to touch anyone physically, male or female. If we haven’t achieved this level of interdiction, then we are definitely behind the curve.

Mohammed Al-Askari, advisor to the Iraqi defence ministry , quoted by the report, attributed the phenomenon of female suicide bombers to “the reduction in al-Qaeda’s influence in Iraq.” They are used to “shame” men into Jihad, he said.

“Interrogations revealed that most of these women are relatives of al-Qaeda elements,” a senior Iraqi military official, Major General Qassim Atta was quoted as saying.

“Preliminary investigations indicate that some women may not know that they will be used as suicide bombers,” Atta said

This “preliminary investigation” seems odd. How would someone, even a child of ten or eleven, not know their person was larded with explosives?

These charming people are also training children. From Fox, this report in February:

Al Qaeda propaganda tapes released by Multinational Forces-Iraq reveal a possible new trend in the group’s terror strategy in Iraq.

The tapes, obtained by FOX News and later released to the media, are training videos showing black-masked Iraqi children between 6 and 14 being taught how to hold AK-47s, stop a car and carry out a kidnapping, break into a house and break into a courtyard and terrorize the individuals living there.

Footage aired for reporters showed an apparent training operation in which the boys are seen storming a house and holding guns to the heads of mock residents. Another tape showed a young boy wearing a suicide vest and posing with automatic weapons.

They also are shown being taught to use rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

“These were young boys all masked and hooded, all outfitted with weapons; adults were doing the training,” said Rear Adm. Greg Smith, a spokesman for Multinational Forces-Iraq.

“Al Qaeda is clearly using children to exploit other children to get the interest of Jihad spread among teenagers far and wide. They use this footage on the Internet to encourage other young boys to join the jihad movement.”

I was surprised to read about AQI’s vulnerability in one area - that is, they seem to need to keep meticulous records, which leaves them open to attack when the material is captured:

Al Qaeda’s networks are not difficult to unravel once a successful raid has been completed. Its operatives’ obsessive need to keep accurate books, such as an accountant might, has provided coalition troops with a treasure trove of intelligence.

Much like the Nazis in World War II, Al Qaeda operatives document their every action, be it a bombing or kidnapping. It is the way they get paid by the organization.

The kidnapping ring that was broken last week had recorded 26 other kidnappings. Coalition forces did not know how many had ended in release, and how many in death.

Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari told reporters that militants are kidnapping more and more Iraqi children, though he could not offer details or numbers.

“This is not only to recruit them, but also to demand ransom to fund the operations of Al Qaeda,” al-Askari said.

The group included about 20 children being “trained.” At the end of the hour-long video they are sent into their parents’ arms, suggesting the training has parental approval and that the children likely come from Al Qaeda-affiliated households.

Well, using your next generation to kill this one is akin to eating the seed for next year’s planting. It doesn’t make sense.

On the other hand, neither does issuing fatwas that state women have the same rights to blow themselves up as men do.

Islamists stopped making sense a long time ago.



Hat tips: C. Cantoni and Waste of My Oxygen