US troops capture recruiter of female suicide bombers north of Baghdad
By Bill Roggio

Task Force 88, the special operations hunter-killer teams tasked with dismantling al Qaeda in Iraq’s senior leaders and wider network, has captured a suicide bomb cell leader and recruiter north of Baghdad. The cell leader, who has not been identified, was recruiting women to carry out suicide attacks against Iraqis and Coalition forces.

"The cell leader used his wife and another woman, to act as carriers of his next SVEST [suicide vest] attack," a Multinational Forces Iraq press release stated.

The cell leader/recruiter was captured in Ghailibiyah, just north of Khan Bani Saad, in Diyala province. "A high level of intelligence led to the successful operation," Major Daniel J. Meyers, a spokesman for Multinational Division–North said in the press release.

This is the second high-ranking al Qaeda operative know to be involved with using women in bombing attacks that was killed or captured over the past two weeks in Diyala province. On Feb. 17, Task Force 88 killed Arkan Khalaf Khudayyir, also known as Karrar, during a raid in Khan Bani Saad. Karrar was a senior al Qaeda intelligence operative in Diyala province that planned suicide bombing attacks in the Diyala River Valley and Baghdad. Karrar's network also launched female bombing attacks into Baghdad. Intelligence gleaned from the raid against Karrar was likely behind the latest capture.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has increasingly relied on female bombers to cause mass-casualty events. Mentally handicapped women have been employed by al Qaeda to catch security forces off balance. Women and the mentally handicapped are not considered threats.

From April 2003 to May 2006, women carried out only five bombing attacks in Iraq. Since January 2008, al Qaeda used women in at least four suicide bombing attacks.

On Feb. 1, al Qaeda in Iraq used two mentally disabled women to conduct attacks at markets in Baghdad. The bombs claimed the lives of at least 73 Iraqi civilians and wounded more than 167. The women were later confirmed to be mentally handicapped. A director at a Baghdad mental hospital was later arrested for recruiting the women for the attacks. On Feb. 17, Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad stopped a female suicide bomber before she could reach her target. Three Iraqis were killed and 10 were wounded after her vest was detonated prematurely. A female suicide bomber killed 7 Iraqis and wounded 15 in an attack at a traffic circle in Khan Bani Saad, on Jan. 16.

Ellie