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IT IS DIFFICULT to learn much about suicide bombers since there is rarely anything left of them. In Diyala, however, because there have been so many bombers who were women, the police have been driven to study the phenomenon, developing a nuanced and thoughtful picture of women who resolve to kill themselves. It was with the help of the police, who were willing to give me access to some of the would-be bombers, that I reported this piece. In particular, working with my interpreter, an Iraqi woman who was trained as a social worker, I was able to have long and even intimate conversations with two of the women in police custody. Police officers were able to corroborate much of what they said.
Each woman’s story is unique, but their journeys to jihad do have commonalities. Many have lost close male relatives. Baida and Ranya lost both fathers and brothers. Many of the women live in isolated communities dominated by extremists, where radical understandings of Islam are the norm. In such places, women are often powerless to control much about their lives; they cannot choose whom they marry, how many children to have or whether they can go to school beyond the primary years. Becoming a suicide bomber is a choice of sorts that gives some women a sense of being special, with a distinguished destiny. But Major Hosham urged me not to generalize: “All the cases are different. Some are old; some are young; some are just criminals; some are believers. They have different reasons.”
One thing stood out: The appearance in Diyala of suicide bombers who were women was entwined with the appearance of the Islamic State of Iraq — the local face of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the umbrella name used in Iraq for homegrown Sunni extremist groups that have some foreign leadership. While many insurgent groups operate in Iraq, those with links to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia are associated with suicide bombings. In Diyala, the Islamic State of Iraq was particularly strong. It was also brutal and organized. It orchestrated mass kidnappings, mass executions, beheadings and ambushes. No one was spared: women or children; Sunnis, Shiites or Kurds. Whole villages were forced to flee; others fell under extremist control. Many of the women who became bombers were from families immersed in jihadist culture.