Drugged girl, 15, a reluctant bomb martyr

Published on Friday 29 August 2008 21:40

RANIA is only 15, but in the past week the softly-spoken Iraqi girl has been drugged and strapped with explosives, before being arrested and thrown into a detention centre.

Now she finds herself at the heart of a propaganda war waged by the Iraqi security forces against the al-Qaeda militants who tried to use her as a suicide bomber.

Police arrested the teenager on Sunday in Iraq's violent Diyala province, where the Sunni militants are waging a bitter campaign against US and Iraqi forces.

She was wearing a vest packed with explosives when she was stopped by a local patrol in the provincial capital, Baquba. Initial reports said she had turned herself in, although police later said she was searched and they found the vest.

US military officials described her as an "unwilling" suicide bomber, as did the girl herself in a television interview.

Rania's ordeal is far from over. Wise to the potential publicity gold-mine she could be as a poster-girl for al-Qaeda's callous tactics, police have paraded her on television.

If Rania is to be believed, her profile matches that of other female suicide bombers in Iraq. Her father and brother both disappeared in 2006, she says, at the height of Iraq's vicious sectarian conflict. Their bodies turned up weeks later.

Analysts say many female suicide bombers are motivated by a thirst for revenge for family killed. But Rania says she never wanted to be a martyr. Then, staring into the distance, she recounts how she was nearly blown to pieces.

"My husband took me to see some of his relatives I'd not seen before. I stayed the night … Then, in the morning, they brought me breakfast with apricot juice. It tasted funny, so I asked what was in it. They told me 'nothing, just drink'." Police said when they arrested her, she seemed drugged by a sedative. "I was feeling dizzy and sick for days," she says.

After breakfast, an older woman who claimed to be a cousin started to put the vest on her, Rania said. She protested, but they told her not to worry. She must just go to a busy local market, where they would meet her. She was suspicious but they were very persuasive.

At a security checkpoint, a Sunni Arab neighbourhood patrol was suspicious of her long robe and searched her, finding the explosive vest.

"I never intended to blow myself up. When stopped at the checkpoint, I wanted to turn myself in, but I was afraid," she says. "Nobody told me how to use this vest. I don't know if they meant to blow me up by remote control. I just don't know."

Her capture – or rescue – is clearly a victory for US and Iraqi security forces in the propaganda war. It has shown an al-Qaeda that looks vulnerable, less competent and increasingly resorting to desperate tactics. Police are seeking her husband.

"The fact he's not shown up to help me yet shows he must have something to hide," she said.