Belgium-born Murial Degauque officially became the first European female suicide bomber in Iraq when her identity was finally released in media reports last week.
The 36-year-old blew herself up in Baquba, north of Baghdad, on November 9 in an attack on an Iraqi police station. She killed herself, five policemen and seriously injured one officer and four civilians, reported the Guardian Unlimited.
For Europe, this latest development in the War on Terror has stunned the predominantly Christian society. Many are asking how a rebellious teen from a home in the small mining town of Monceau-sur-Sambre turned to radical Islam.
In her twenties, the former bakery assistant and waitress met and married a Belgian-Turk, divorced him, moved to Brussels and had a long relationship with an Algerian who converted her to a radical interpretation of Islam in 2001.
Then three years ago she married Issam Goris, a Belgian-born Moroccan, who held similar beliefs to her own and moved with him to Morocco. Goris was killed in the Iraqi city of Fallujah by American troop hours after his wife detonated the bomb in Baquba.
Degauque's mother told the Times Online that she was not surprised when she learned that the Belgium national involved in a suicide bombing was her daughter. According to her, Muriel or Myriam, as she came to be known, was "more Muslim than Muslim" when she returned from Morocco.
"The religion was totally ingrained in her. She only lived for that. When we saw them, they imposed their rules. We were at home, but my husband had to eat in the kitchen with Issam while the women ate together in the sitting room. There was no question of putting on the TV or opening a beer…I am furious at those who manipulated her," said Mrs. Degauque in an Los Angeles Times report.
Belgian police have been in the hunt for Muriel's accomplices. Utilizing information from documents found with Muriel's body, French and Belgian police were able to mount a surveillance operation on the groups that sent the couple to Iraq. According to the LA Times, last week police in Brussels, Charleroi, Antwerp and Paris launched a series of raids netting 15 people who were recruiting suicide bombers for the insurgency in Iraq.
While the involvement of women in Islamic terrorist activities has been rare in Europe, as they have previously been exempt under Islamic law, there has recently been a rising trend of participation by female followers of radical Islam.
European police are keeping a close eye on the charismatic widow of the Brussel-based assassin of Ahmed Shah Massoud, Malika Aroud. She was acquitted in 2003 of terrorism charges in Belgium but now faces fresh charges of inciting terrorism through a militant website in Switzerland.
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