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Michael speaks with John Roberts about a woman arrested in Iraq who had been recruiting female suicide bombers. How and why she had found so many who were willing to participate is truly heartbreaking.
JOHN
ROBERTS: It's 21 minutes now after the hour. Some of
the deadliest attacks in Iraq have been triggered by
female suicide bombers. Many have been recruited by
one woman known as the mother of believers. She was
arrested before last week's provincial elections.
Iraqi authorities showed a tape in which she
described her recruitment methods.
Now, CNN cannot verify which interrogation technique
if any was used to get her confession. Authorities do
say her arrest could be a major blow to terrorists in
Iraq who see women as the perfect weapon in a place
where culture forbids a man to frisk a woman.
Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware joins us now in
the studio this morning. Just how bad a problem, how
serious a problem were female suicide bombers
becoming, and what kind of a dent might this arrest
if any, put in it?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN BAGHDAD CORRESPONDENT: Well, we saw
that over the last couple of years the use of female
suicide bombers went from eight attacks in a year to
over 30 or to 30. So that's quite a rise but in the
broader scheme it's still mostly male suicide
bombers.
Now, as it's so often been said to me by the troops
when we're in the midst of a battle on the front
line, the most dangerous weapon on a battlefield is a
man prepared to die because he can come in, he
doesn't have to worry about how he gets home. More so
even with a female suicide bomber. Because of the
cultural restrictions, they're wearing the abaya, men
can't touch them to pat them down. So the insurgents
or the Islamic extremists have been using that as
their advantage.
But there's one thing to stress here, John, this is
not al-Qaeda. This is a group called Ansar al-Sunna,
an extremist Iraqi group that did not exist until the
American invasion.
ROBERTS: Now, in terms of the, you know, the security
procedures here, just prior to the elections, didn't
they use some female security officers to try to pat
down the women? Did that have any effect?
WARE: Absolutely. I mean, you know, there were a lot
of things that went into the security envelope that
secured these elections. But one of the things
obviously is, you know, searching women as they're
coming in to vote. And to do that, they use female
security officers but there are simply not enough. So
we saw that they actually recruited teachers and
public servants -- female teachers and public
servants -- to lend a hand. I mean, it's quite an
issue.
ROBERTS: Now, let's go back to this woman who, as we
said, talked about herself as being the mother of all
believers. She said apparently in her confession that
she preyed on vulnerable women, troubled souls in
particular. She says, "She was able to persuade women
to become suicide bombers, broken women, especially
those who were raped." And there's some idea too that
she was involved in a plot that she would have these
women raped...
WARE: Yeah.
ROBERTS: ... and then have them referred to her for
counseling?
WARE: Yeah, I mean, that's impossible to verify but
it certainly fits within the cultural framework. I
mean, what we've seen in the past is that the female
suicide bombers are often the surviving relatives of
men who have died in battle or been suicide bombers
themselves, so they're trying to avenge the death of
their loved one. But we also see as we see across the
Middle East, women who, say, have been raped or have
been caught having an affair or just a romance can be
shunned by their families. They're disgraced, so what
else is there for them?
So there's a suggestion from this woman that in a few
instances, she witnessed the rape, would intervene,
pull the woman aside, say, "Well, what choice do you
have now?" and then hand them back. It's a brutal,
brutal business, John.
ROBERTS: So the woman gets victimized twice.
WARE: Absolutely, and she becomes a lethal weapon.
ROBERTS: Michael, good to see you this morning.
WARE: Cheers, mate.
ROBERTS: Thanks for that. Kiran?