Female bombers strike in Iraq

Four female suicide bombers killed dozens of men, women, and children in Baghdad and in the northern city of Kirkuk this week, shattering the relative calm that had taken hold in Iraq. In Baghdad, three bombers detonated themselves during a Shiite procession to a religious shrine. At least 32 were killed and 79 wounded. In the predominantly Kurdish city of Kirkuk, a woman shouted, “God is great!” before blowing herself up at a Kurdish protest against proposed power sharing with Arab and Turkmen minorities. That bombing and subsequent clashes killed 25.

The number of suicide attacks by women in Iraq has risen from eight last year to 27 so far in 2008. U.S. authorities say al Qaida uses various strong-arm tactics to enlist the women, including dishonoring them by rape and threatening to kill their loved ones. Some of the female recruits, though, are committed jihadists who relish the opportunity to die for their cause.

Whatever’s behind the trend, said Frank James in Chicagotribune.com, it’s truly disturbing. Female bombers pose a daunting security challenge, since Iraqi culture and Islamic tradition “make it harder for women to be searched for explosive suicide belts under their abayahs.” At the same time, they “demonstrate once again the resiliency of the al Qaida terrorists who refuse to surrender.” We’re left to hope there’s not an “inexhaustible supply” of these desperate women.

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The U.S. can’t afford to wait to find out how many there are, said William Saletan in Slate.com. Iraqi counterinsurgency policy can no longer assume that Iraqi women are “too meek to fight and kill. They’re already killing.” The government has begun to train Iraqi women to frisk suspected female bombers. But the threat is still treated gingerly, as if what’s most important is not violating anyone’s sensibilities. “How many more women have to blow themselves up before we get the message?”

If nothing else, said Matthew Yglesias in TheAtlantic.com, the spate of bombings reminds us that reports of Iraq’s returning to normalcy have been greatly exaggerated. “Even in its ‘better’ state, Iraq is very much a shattered society.”