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Tuesday, February 9, 2010     INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING

Al Qaida recruited battered women inmates as suicide bombers

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi intelligence community has determined that Al Qaida was recruiting women in prisons to become suicide bombers.   

Officials said Al Qaida women agents were assigned to look for vulnerable and battered women in prison for recruitment for suicide missions. They said the Al Qaida agents targeted women who were escaping abusive husbands or fathers as well as those afflicted by drug addiction.

"The constraints imposed on women by rigid customs and traditions facilitate the recruitment," Iraqi Brig. Gen. Mahmoud Tamimi said.


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Tamimi, a senior official in the Iraqi Office of Counter-Terrorism, said Al Qaida has recruited an undetermined number of women for suicide bombings in Baghdad and other cities. He said the network has established a special unit for women agents and suicide bombers. The unit has been identified as Harem Al Qaida.

"The renewal of women suicide attacks is linked to Al Qaida's exploitation of the psychological and social conditions in detention," Tamimi said in a briefing on Feb. 2.

Officials said Al Qaida was believed to have recruited scores of women for attack missions. They said women agents, exploiting the reluctance to search female pedestrians, were sent to blow up military and police checkpoints as well as target Shi'ite pilgrims.

In the latest attack, a female suicide bomber killed 54 Shi'ite pilgrims in northern Baghdad on Feb. 1, Middle East Newsline reported. The woman has not yet been identified.

"We hold the Baathists and militants and their allies, from the sheiks to those with deviant opinions, responsible for the bloodshed," Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki said.

Officials said they expect additional women suicide strikes by Al Qaida in the weeks toward national elections in March 2010. They said the Interior Ministry was examining ways to prevent Al Qaida from recruiting women prisoners.

"We must work to prevent the transformation of prisons into a factories that produce suicide bombers," Tamimi said.



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