Iraq sets another tragic record

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A woman strapped with explosives blew herself up outside an Iraqi army recruiting center in a northern town Wednesday, killing at least six people and wounding 30 in the first known attack by a female suicide bomber in the country's bloody insurgency. The attack in Tal Afar, where U.S. and Iraqi forces routed militants in a major offensive two weeks ago, demonstrated the difficulty of maintaining security in the towns in the large northwestern region stretching to the Syrian border, where insurgents are most active. The woman, disguised as a man in traditional robes, was standing in line with applicants to join the Iraqi army at the first of three checkpoints outside the center when she detonated explosives hidden under her clothes and packed with metal balls, said Maj. Jamil Mohammed Sadr in Tal Afar.

This, in my view, derives several points. First of all, it is not a coincidence that attack occurred just near the Syrian border with Iraq - meaning that foreign fights, as I have mentioned previously are becoming the biggest, but at the same time only remaining threat to the new Iraqi democracy - with their goal being plunging this nation into civil war and anarchy. Secondly - this being the first suicide attack by a female in THIS insurgency (Saddam's regime used female bombers at least once during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, when two women blew up a car at a checkpoint near the city of Haditha, killing three American soldiers days before the April 2003 fall of Baghdad.) - only more proof of how much hate these people are capable of. Finally, Islamic terrorists are getting ostensibly desperate with these moves, that doesn't make them any less dangerous, unfortunately, leaving the coalition troops, new Iraqi democratic government, as well as greater global community under persistent pressure.