Muriel Degauque: Europe's First Woman Suicide Bomber
Sam Knight and agencies
Times Online, UK
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A female bakery worker from Charleroi in Belgium was today named by security sources as the first European woman to travel to Iraq and carry out a suicide bombing.
Muriel Degauque, 38, blew herself up in a failed attack on American soldiers on November 9 in the outskirts of Baghdad.
The case has shocked the public in her home country, where she has been nicknamed the "Belgian kamikaze".Degauque failed to injure anyone else in the bombing.
Yesterday 14 people were arrested in a series of raids across Belgium, as police attempted to unravel the network of militants that smuggled her from Syria into Iraq.
A further five men were arrested today.In an interview with the French newspaper, Le Parisien, Degauque's mother, Liliane, said that her daughter's conversion to radical Islam began after she started spending more and more time with North African friends in 2000.
Belgian police said they believed Degauque was the first Western woman to blow herself up in Iraq. Degauque's husband is believed to have died in a separate suicide attack.
Dec 01, 2005
Sam Knight and agencies
Times Online, UK
__________
A female bakery worker from Charleroi in Belgium was today named by security sources as the first European woman to travel to Iraq and carry out a suicide bombing.
Muriel Degauque, 38, blew herself up in a failed attack on American soldiers on November 9 in the outskirts of Baghdad.
The case has shocked the public in her home country, where she has been nicknamed the "Belgian kamikaze".Degauque failed to injure anyone else in the bombing.
Yesterday 14 people were arrested in a series of raids across Belgium, as police attempted to unravel the network of militants that smuggled her from Syria into Iraq.
A further five men were arrested today.In an interview with the French newspaper, Le Parisien, Degauque's mother, Liliane, said that her daughter's conversion to radical Islam began after she started spending more and more time with North African friends in 2000.
Belgian police said they believed Degauque was the first Western woman to blow herself up in Iraq. Degauque's husband is believed to have died in a separate suicide attack.
Dec 01, 2005
