Iraq: Woman arrested for recruiting female bombers

[February 03, 2009]  BAGHDAD (AP) -- A woman suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has been arrested, the Iraqi military said Tuesday, dealing a major blow to one of the most effective forms of attacks in Iraq.

The woman, who was identified as Samira Ahmed Jassim or by her nickname "Umm al-Mumineen," was shown confessing in a video played for reporters at a press conference in Baghdad.

Dressed in an all-encompassing black Islamic robe, she described how she would persuade the women to be bombers, then escort them to an orchard for insurgent training and finally pick them up and lead them to their targets.

She said she was acting on behalf of insurgents based in the volatile Diyala province, north of Baghdad.

Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said the suspect had recruited more than 80 women willing to carry out attacks and had admitted masterminding 28 bombings in different areas.

The number of bombings carried out by women has spiked even as overall violence has declined, and U.S. commanders have warned insurgents are actively trying to find more recruits.

The use of female suicide bombers is part of a shift in insurgent tactics to avoid detection at U.S.-Iraqi military checkpoints that have become ubiquitous in Iraq as part of increased security measures.

Iraqi women often are allowed to pass through male-guarded checkpoints without being searched, and they traditionally wear flowing black robes that make it easier to hide explosives belts.

To counter the threat, the U.S. military has stepped up efforts to recruit women for the Iraqi security forces.

Jassim, whose nickname means "the mother of believers," was arrested by Iraqi security forces acting on tips on Jan. 21 and is allegedly linked to the Ansar al-Sunnah insurgent group, al-Moussawi said.

The spokesman would not say where Jassim was arrested because the investigation was ongoing. But he said the recruits had been from Baghdad and Diyala province. He also said she had contact with a pair of recently detained insurgent brothers.

In the video, Jassim said she had to talk to one elderly woman several times before persuading her to blow herself up at a bus station.

It also took Jassim two weeks to recruit another woman who was a teacher and had problems with her husband and his family, according to the confession. The woman eventually attacked members of government-backed Sunni groups in Diyala province, the suspect said.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have pinned hopes on Saturday's provincial elections to more equitably distribute power among Iraq's fractured ethnic and sectarian groups and stanch support for the Sunni-led insurgency.

Official results from the vote for 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces haven't been released, but early returns have begun to trickle out. That has sparked a series of complaints from political groups that feel they've been cheated.

The Iraqi military lifted a curfew in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province a day after tribal sheiks sent gunmen into the streets claiming the Shiite-led government stole votes in last weekend's elections.

Iraqi commander Maj. Gen. Murdhi Mishhin says a vehicle ban was lifted Tuesday morning and no violence has been reported.

U.S. officials have said the test of the election was whether the public perceived a fair outcome.

But tribal groups known as Awakening Councils claim there was fraud by a rival Sunni party. The sheiks believe they should have power because of their contribution in routing al-Qaida.

Sunni Arab lawmaker Osama al-Nujaifi, meanwhile, claimed that his nationalist party has won a majority of votes in Mosul and the surrounding Ninevah province, where ethnic tensions are running high.

The Kurds disputed the claim by the Sunni National Hadba Gathering, saying it was too early to claim victory because official results haven't been released.

U.S. commanders say the insurgency remains a potent force in Mosul, Iraq's third largest city 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, in part because the majority Sunni Arab population believes it has been poorly served by a local government dominated by Kurds.

Sunnis largely boycotted the last provincial polls in January 2005, allowing Kurds to gain control of the council.

Al-Nujaifi said the group known as al-Hadba, which opposes Kurdish influence and the U.S. military in Iraq, won 60 percent of the vote for the 37-seat council -- based on information from his pollwatchers.

The Kurdish list -- which previously dominated the council after the Sunnis boycotted 2005 elections -- got less than 20 percent, he said.

The rival Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, which is part of the government's national ruling coalition, received less than 10 percent of the vote, followed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Coalition of the State of Law and the Turkomen Front, he said.

Provincial elections were not held in the three semiautonomous Kurdish provinces because lawmakers said separate legislation was needed before a date could be set for the vote.

A senior lawmaker, however, said Kurds will elect a new parliament for their oil-rich semiautonomous region in Iraq on May 19.

The vote for a new 111-seat National Assembly will be the first elections in the region since 2005.

Adnan al-Mufti, the current parliamentary speaker, said the minimum age for candidates was lowered from 30 to 25 "to give young people and women a larger chance for representation."

[Associated Press; By SINAN SALAHEDDIN]

Associated Press writer Yahya Barzanji in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq, contributed to this report.

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