BAGHDAD, Iraq – A woman disguised in a man’s robes and headdress slipped into a line of army recruits Wednesday and detonated explosives strapped to her body, killing at least six recruits and wounding 35 – the first known suicide attack by a woman in Iraq’s insurgency.
The attack in Tal Afar near the Syrian border appeared aimed at showing that militants could still strike in a town where U.S. and Iraqi offensives drove out insurgents only two weeks ago. A female suicide bomber may have been chosen because she could get through checkpoints – at which women are rarely searched – then don her disguise to join the line of men, Iraqi officials said.
| The latest identifications reported by the U.S. military of personnel recently killed in Iraq: Navy Seaman Apprentice Robert Macrum, 22, Sugarland, Texas; was lost at sea, last seen Sept. 12; assigned to USS Princeton. Army Master Sgt. Tulsa Tuliau, 33, Watertown, N.Y.; and Sgt. 1st Class Casey Howe, 32, Philadelphia, N.Y.; killed Monday by an explosion near their vehicle in Rustimayah; assigned to 3rd Battalion, 314th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 78th Division, Fort Drum, N.Y. |
Iraq’s most notorious insurgent group, al-Qaida in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack in an Internet statement, saying it was carried out by a “blessed sister.”
The bombing came a day after U.S. and Iraqi officials announced their forces killed the second-in-command of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abdullah Abu Azzam, in a raid in Baghdad over the weekend. His death has not slowed insurgent violence, with at least 84 people – including seven U.S. service members – killed in attacks since Sunday.
The U.S. military announced Wednesday that two more American soldiers and an airman were killed in violence, and a Marine was killed by a noncombat gunshot.
In the attack at the Tal Afar recruitment center, the female suicide bomber was wearing a traditional white “dishdasha” robe and a checkered kaffiya headscarf – both worn only by men – to blend in with the line of Iraqi applicants, Maj. Jamil Mohammed Saleh said.
She detonated explosives packed with metal balls and hidden under her clothes, Saleh said. Six recruits were killed and 35 wounded, said hospital officials in Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad.
In a photo of the attacker’s head taken by Saleh, the woman appeared to be in her early 20s with dark eyes, light skin and brownish hair. Saleh said it was not known whether she was Iraqi.
Gen. Ahmed Mohammed Khalaf, the regional police chief, said insurgents were exploiting the fact that women are not searched at checkpoints “because of religious and social traditions.”
Women and children will now be searched at Tal Afar checkpoints, he said.
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