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“Frankly, they called me when they knew I would meet a journalist and translator and they did their best to get your descriptions and the date you would come,” she went on to say. “They asked me about the date many times. They know the way to the hospital. They would be waiting for you and would kill you. They said to me, ‘If you will do that for us, we will help you escape from the hospital, even from prison.’ They asked for other details: ‘What were your names; what did you look like?’ ”
She seemed excited now at the thought of our capture. “They do not want to kill you, but to torture you and make lunch of your flesh. I could not do anything to help you.”
She described seeing — she didn’t say how — an American soldier the group had kidnapped. “They took out his eyes and burned his body,” she said. “God keep you safe.”
As she described the case, I realized it was one I knew. I covered the trial of three of the men involved in the murder. I asked her what year she saw this; she got it right, 2006. I felt nauseated. Members of what would become the Islamic State of Iraq kidnapped three young soldiers guarding a bridge. One was killed immediately, but the other two were slowly tortured to death. One had his eyes gouged out and his body was tied to the back of a truck and dragged along the roads.
“They showed it to the women because women have a soft heart so they must see it so that they get used to it,” she said.
I looked at my watch; I worried we had stayed too long. I got up hurriedly, knocking my notebooks to the floor. I adjusted my veil, thanked her for her time, for teaching me about jihad and for making me understand how dangerous her world was.
Baida was smiling again. “If I had not seen you before and talked to you, I would kill you with my own hands,” she said pleasantly. “Do not be deceived by my peaceful face. I have a heart of stone.”
A few days later Baida was transferred back to the provincial jail in Baquba after doctors at Rashad hospital determined that she had no psychological disorder. (Baida said the doctors told her early on: “You have a brain like a computer. You shouldn’t be here.”) At this writing she is still in jail. For now, she tells whoever asks that she’s prepared to go out and kill the enemy; but if she were to start saying that she no longer would do that, I imagine she would be released quite quickly. And I have no reason to doubt that she would then carry out her dream of blowing herself up.