Bombshell (30 page)

On the day of Muriel's suicide, Zarqawi also coordinated attacks against three Western hotels in Amman: the Grand Hyatt, the Radisson SAS, and the Days Inn. The agent sent to blow up one of these hotels was another of Zarqawi's female operatives, the sister of his Western field commander, Mubarak Atrous al Rishawi. Sajida became politically active when three of her brothers were killed by Coalition forces in Iraq. She penetrated a wedding reception at the Radisson SAS Hotel but her device failed to detonate and she was eventually caught. She sits on death row in Jordan awaiting her sentence.

In September 2005—even before the suicide missions in Baquba and Amman—Ayman Al Zawahiri warned Zarqawi that Muslim public opinion was turning against his organization. Too many Sunni Muslims were being killed by his bombs. According to terrorism expert Paul Wilkinson, “Al Qaeda figures were uncomfortable with the tactics he was using in Iraq. With Zarqawi, the core leadership could not control the way he operated.”
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The merger began to show signs of collapse.

Zarqawi was finally killed by the American forces on June 7, 2006. Senior leaders within Zarqawi's own network tipped off the Americans about his whereabouts and the United States Air Force dropped a 500-pound bomb on his safe house. Military sources suggest off the record that they were only able to assassinate Zarqawi after Al Qaeda cut their ties with his organization and left him vulnerable.
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Zarqawi's wife, Umm Muhammed, posted a letter in July 2006 on the Mujahideen Shura Council's website, calling on Muslims everywhere to defend the honor of her husband. She appealed to Muslim men to avenge his death, but it was the women who really stepped up to the plate.

Zarqawi's imprimatur on the conflict has lasted well beyond his death. By 2007, female suicide bombers had become the weapon of choice for AQI and the tactic had spread to several of
the other Iraqi insurgent organizations fighting the Coalition—of which there were many, and more emerging every month. Women account for almost a third of the suicide bombings in Iraq and as many as 60 percent in Diyala province. We do not know whether all of these women are local or what percentage are foreigners. Iraqi sources claim that, other than Muriel, all the female bombers have been Iraqi. As the tactic has become more commonplace, the Iraqi terrorist groups have altered the profile to include both older and younger women. A civil affairs officer in Baghdad, Steven Ernesto, notes an even more sinister development: he claims that not only women but also children are the new weapons for insurgent groups. Both have the ability to penetrate civilian targets easily because they look like the “normal” people Al Qaeda is targeting. Suicide bombings by women against Shi'a civilians have become the trademark of Al Qaeda in Iraq. These attacks are succeeding despite the massive security operations mounted by the Iraqi authorities to combat them.

DAUGHTERS OF IRAQ

Beginning in 2006, the U.S. military devised a new strategy to combat female suicide bombers without eliciting the negative reaction caused by invasive body searches. In 2007, American and Iraqi officials established the Female Awakening Councils, also known as the Daughters of Iraq. As part of the new security plan, the councils set out to curb female suicide bombers and prevent extremist radicalization of women and children in the areas at risk, especially in and around Diyala province, where so many of the attacks have been concentrated. The female volunteers get weapons and self-defense training as well as instruction on how to investigate and inspect for IEDs. One hundred women have volunteered to be trained by female American soldiers in detecting and combating female suicide bombers.

The use of women bombers can be seen as a clever tactical adaptation to the changing security environment, in which targets have been hardened against traditional attacks and men are routinely searched for IEDs. Coalition forces have established standard operating procedures for detecting and preventing car bombs, which almost invariably are driven by men. They monitor everything from the behavior of the driver to the load distribution on their vehicles to gauge whether the trunk contains explosives. But these measures are of no use in guarding against women suicide bombers, so their deployment seems smart.

An alternative view argues that using women bombers is actually a sign of Al Qaeda's weakness. As Coalition forces push the militants from their strongholds, the pool of potential recruits is shrinking. According to Diaa Rashwan, an expert on Islamic militancy at Egypt's Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, it is the tightening noose that has prompted the insurgent groups to employ more female operatives. Extremist Muslim organizations use women only when they see no alternative. “Women should be in the last rows of fighting … So to see women [suicide bombers] shows an abnormal situation—the absence of men.”
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Al Qaeda has resorted to female bombers due to the “decrease in funding, the decrease of foreign fighters who could cross the border, and the change in society's attitude that previously embraced them.”
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The fact that the women are often cajoled and coerced (or physically forced) makes Al Qaeda's weakness all the more apparent.

Al Qaeda in Iraq and the other Iraqi insurgent organizations do not ordinarily record the women's names or details as they do with male suicide bombers, which makes identifying and researching women all the more challenging.
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With no martyrdom videos, last wills, or recorded messages, it is difficult to determine the perpetrators' motivations. Insurgents who take credit for suicide attacks by female bombers usually refer only to their “blessed sister.” A rare
exception was Nour Qaddour ash-Shammari. In the martyrdom video released in 2003, she said “I have devoted myself to jihad for the sake of God and against the American, British, and Israeli infidels and to defend the soil of our precious and dear country.”
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What set Nour and her female colleague, Wadad Jamil Jassem, apart was that they were not operatives for AQI but rather suicide bombers sent by Saddam Hussein. In their video they bless and congratulate Saddam: “We say to our leader and holy war comrade, the hero commander Saddam Hussein, that you have sisters that you and history will boast about.”
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The martyred women of Al Qaeda are rarely identified and reports about their frequency vary wildly between Western and local sources. U.S. Army officials have drawn attention to the rising number of female detainees at the secure detention facility in Baghdad. While the military places the total number of women bombers in Iraq at around forty to date, Arab and Iraqi media claim more than seventy bombers in 2008 alone. Adnan Al Asadi, undersecretary for the Iraqi interior minister, claims that security forces have recorded seventy-nine attacks by women suicide bombers between the arrival of American forces in Iraq in April 2003 and August 2008.
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Part of the discrepancy might be explained by the criteria used in counting. Iraqi sources include preempted bombers—those who were caught prior to detonation—as well as bombers who killed only themselves, an approach which places the number of female bombers in Iraq closer to 174 in 2009.

Despite the stealth of the insurgents, the identities of a handful of women suicide bombers have been discovered, although long after the operations, and as part of other investigations. These bombers share some common features. Iraqi women, like their sisters in Chechnya, appear to be motivated by proximity to the conflict and the loss of loved ones. Many of the women who turned to violence have had relatives, either civilians or militants,
killed in the fighting. Many of the Iraqi female bombers were recruited by Itisam Adwan, a thirty-eight-year-old woman more commonly known by her nom de guerre, Umm Fatima. Adwan warned U.S. troops that scores of widowed Iraqi women and their young relatives and friends were being groomed to perpetrate deadly attacks. According to the police in Baquba, Adwan was one of several mothers who tell their daughters that they will go to heaven, sit in comfort by rivers of honey, and lunch with the prophet Muhammed (PBUH) if they perpetrate an act of martyrdom. The girls are married off to Al Qaeda members and their husbands tell them that martyrdom will be glorious and that their willingness to kill in the name of Islam will automatically get them into heaven.
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When Iraqi authorities arrested Adwan in September 2008, she was replaced by a high-ranking Al Qaeda wife. Umm Salamah, believed to be the wife of the slain AQI commander Abu Ubaydah al Rawi, is now commander of the Dhat an-Nitaqayn Martyrdom Brigade. She has vowed to unleash her army of female martyrs on the streets of Baghdad to combat disbelief and vice. She claims that scores of women in Falluja, Baghdad, Mosul, and Diyala are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to meet their loved ones in heaven after a martyrdom operation. “They are counting the hours for the moment to attack the infidels like bitter colocynth [a vine mentioned in the Bible]. They are close to the zero hour.”
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The Dhat an-Nitaqayn Martyrdom Brigade has successfully merged the Salafi interpretation of Islam with a woman's perspective and capitalized on women's emotional experiences under occupation. Among the female bombers thus far, fifty-five have been the wives or daughters of Al Qaeda leaders and most have lost loved ones during the war.

According to a report by the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, more than a hundred women have been arrested for terrorist-related
activities, seventy of whom have been tried by the government and are behind bars. Most if not all of the female suicide bombers are relatives of male terrorists. The filial connection is no accident. The terrorist organizations deliberately recruit women who have a brother, father, or son already affiliated with one of the groups. In part, this is a vetting process, a way of being assured that the person is not providing information to the other side and can be trusted to complete the mission tasked to them. The likelihood of a woman changing her mind, and so bringing shame to her entire family, is slim. Another significant motivating factor is the reinforcement of belief systems provided by family. According to a former U.S. military officer, “More women are being exposed to jihadi propaganda through the men who bring home videos to watch them. Women are also watching the same indoctrination videos.”
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As is the case in other struggles, women are often coerced into taking action. Women who have lost loved ones find themselves marginalized in Iraqi society and especially vulnerable to predation. There are more than 100,000 widows in Iraq because of the war and the sectarian violence between the various communities. Al Qaeda has succeeded in deepening women's depression by using their personal tragedies to its advantage. Many of the women are poor and borderline illiterate. Al Qaeda recruiters make use of their poverty, despair, resentment, and eagerness to take revenge against the American troops to recruit them.
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The women are exploited based on three factors: tribal affiliation, financial pressure, and revenge for the loss of family.

In traditional Islamic societies, women without close male relatives are subjected to economic and social hardship that may make them more susceptible to radicalization and recruitment by terrorist groups. The lack of government programs for widows and orphans leaves the women with severe psychological issues. According to Iraqi psychologist Dr. Sa'ad ad-Din, it is easy to recruit
a person who is emotionally unstable or of mediocre intelligence.
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However, a person with mental illness is not an ideal recruit. Al Qaeda has also not used mentally handicapped women as suicide bombers in Iraq. It was reported by some agencies that two women who blew up the Baghdad bird markets had Down syndrome, but this was not, in fact, the case. They
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under the care of a psychiatrist, who turned out to be the local recruiter for the terrorist organization, but they did not suffer from any birth defects, which would have made them far too conspicuous in public. Rather, the force of the blast distorted their facial features and the Iraqi police tried to discredit Al Qaeda by disseminating the false imputation with its implication of cowardice.

Iraqi terrorist groups do, however, target underage women who are living on the streets and have no men to protect them. Most of the female bombers have no religious background whatsoever and can be manipulated into thinking that such operations are Allah's will and are justified in the
Qur'an
and Hadith. At other times, the women are simply tricked. They are told that the packages they are transporting contain contraband, and then their minders detonate the IEDs by remote control before the duped women even know they have “volunteered” for a mission.

Among the more blatant forms of coercion brought to bear on susceptible women are drugging, kidnapping, and sexual assault. In October 2008, fifteen-year-old Raniya Ibrahim Mutlaq (Mutleg)
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was caught before she could detonate her improvised explosive device outside a school in Baquba. Iraqi police officers spotted red wires dangling from beneath her clothing and deduced that she was carrying a bomb. When the officers approached her, Raniya did not resist, but rather acted as if she was in a drug-induced trance. One officer handcuffed her to a fence's metal railings and slowly began to remove the outer garments of her outfit. While he carefully defused the bomb wrapped around her waist, Raniya seemed to be
in a daze. The police officer was able to remove the IED without injuring her or causing any casualties. (For his coolness under pressure, he received five million Iraqi dinars—around $4,250—for a job well done.)

During her initial interrogation, Raniya denied knowing that she was wearing an explosive vest, even though it weighed nearly thirty pounds. She claimed to have been a victim of circumstance. Raniya was from a poor family. She grew up in a mud hut in a small village near Abu Seida, eighty kilometers northeast of Baghdad. Although as a little girl she fantasized about someday becoming a doctor, poverty and the war meant that she would never realize her dreams. Raniya's father and brother were killed by sectarian violence after the American invasion in 2003. Instead of allowing her to stay in school, her family forced her to marry Muhammed Hassan al Dulaimi, a member of Al Qaeda in Iraq, when she was fourteen. Dulaimi went on the run, and Raniya felt all alone in the world. Her mother and aunt were the local recruiters for Al Qaeda, and both were prepared to sacrifice her for the cause. But according to Raniya, it was actually her husband's cousins who got her involved: they gave her some spiked juice to drink that made her feel dizzy and submissive. The cousins fastened the suicide belt around her waist and directed her to the marketplace to explode. Interrogators could not determine whether Raniya had been a willing participant or if she had been coerced. The Diyala juvenile court judge said she was young and naïve and took into consideration the fact that she had not resisted arrest. He sentenced her to seven and a half years in jail.