Feb 3, 2009, 15:40 GMT
Baghdad - Iraqi security forces have arrested a woman who confessed to recruiting and training dozens of female suicide bombers who subsequently launched attacks in Baghdad and Diyala provinces, security officials announced Tuesday.
Samira Ahmed Jassem was arrested January 21 on charges of recruiting female bombers, said Qassem Atta, an Iraqi security official, during a press conference.
Terrorist groups like al-Qaeda started to use female suicide bombers in 2007 because women and girls are less likely to be subject to searches.
'Samira Jassem confessed to having recruited women who carried out 28 suicide attacks in different parts of Baghdad and Diyala,' Atta added, without revealing where she was arrested 'due to security reasons.'
'However, our information indicates that she has recruited 80 female suicide bombers,' he added.
Also on Tuesday, a suicide bomber with an explosive belt was arrested while attempting to detonate himself in the northern city of Kirkuk.
Salar Khaled, deputy director of the city's Asayesh servicemen (Kurdish security forces), told the Voices of Iraq news agency that the bomber, Muthana Jasim Abdullah, was arrested near al-Shuhadaa (Martyrs) Bridge in central Kirkuk.
Also in the north, a bomb exploded in Diyala's capital city of Baquba earlier on Tuesday, leaving three people dead and three others injured.
Witnesses told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that an improvised explosive device detonated inside an ambulance near a police station, killing the driver and another two civilians inside the ambulance.
The blast, which was also near a popular market in downtown Baquba, also wounded three police officers.
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