BAGHDAD: A woman accused of recruiting dozens of female suicide bombers in Iraq has told how she helped plan the rapes of victims before convincing them martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame.The Iraqi military announced the arrest of Samira Ahmed Jassim, 51 - codenamed "Umm al-Mumineen", the mother of believers - on Tuesday. Officials played video footage of her confessing to recruiting and training women in suicide attacks before leading them to targets. In a separate prison interview with Associated Press - conducted a week after her January 21 arrest, with interrogators standing nearby - Jassim confessed to helping plan the rapes of young women. She said she would then step in to persuade the victims to become suicide bombers as their only escape from the shame, the agency said. In many parts of Iraq, rape victims are shunned by their families and society. AP was allowed access on condition that the information would be released after the announcement of the arrest. Police interrogators were not in the room during Jassim's interview with the agency, but they were in an adjoining chamber. Jassim did not offer additional details on her alleged role in the attacks, but suggested she was pressured into working with the insurgency. She claimed that Ansar al-Sunnah provided her with a house in Diyala, where she operated a shop selling flowing robes for women called abayas. She claimed that Ansar al-Sunnah once threatened to bomb her house if she refused to co-operate. "I worked with (Ansar al-Sunnah) for a year and a half," she told AP. It was impossible to independently verify the claims of using rape as a tool to recruit women bombers in the volatile Diyala province northeast of Baghdad. But Jassim - who has four daughters and two sons - gave unusual descriptions of the workings behind last year's spike in attacks by women bombers, investigators said. Iraqi military spokesman Major General Qassim al-Moussawi said she had recruited more than 80 women willing to carry out attacks and had admitted masterminding 28 bombings in different areas. The US and Iraqi militaries have made past claims about efforts by insurgents to recruit vulnerable women and children as attackers, while providing little evidence. The claims included that two women who blew themselves up last year in Baghdad had Down syndrome, statements later proved to be exaggerated. Major General Moussawi said Jassim's arrest was the result of tips, and he produced the video to back the allegations.
Comments