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What made a Belgian woman become a suicide bomber?
How could a young woman turn from Belgian baker's assistant to Baghdad suicide bomber?Belgium has been shocked by revelations that Muriel Degauque, an unassuming woman who grew up near the rust belt city of Charleroi, had entered Iraq from Syria and detonated explosives strapped to her body in a failed attack against US troops. Liliane Degauque, the 38-year-old's mother, told local TV networks that her daughter was "so nice", but began to change when she married an Algerian man and turned to Islamic fundamentalism. The case underlined the growing reach of international terrorism. "It is the first time that we see that a Western woman, a Belgian, marrying a radical Muslim, and is converted up to the point of becoming a jihad fighter," said Glenn Audenaert, the federal police director. In her younger years, Muriel Degauque lived a conventional life in an industrial belt of southern Belgium. Media reports said she finished high school before taking on several jobs, including selling bread in a bakery. They also said that as an adolescent she had run into problems with drugs and alcohol. Authorities say Degauque went on to become a member of a terror cell that embraced al Qaeda's ideology. It included her second husband, who died in a separate terror attack in Iraq. "This is our Belgian kamikaze killed in Iraq," read the headline of yesterday's La Derniere Heure newspaper, over a picture of a smiling young woman looking into the camera. When Liliane Degauque saw police coming to her doorstep on Wednesday, she immediately knew what it was about. She had heard reports that there had been a terrorist attack on November 9 by a Belgian woman. Ms Degauque said: "For three weeks already I tried to contact her by telephone but I got the answering machine." Authorities yesterday formally arrested five of the 14 suspects detained in dawn raids the day before and charged them with involvement in a terrorist network that sent volunteers to Iraq, including Degauque. Nine were released. Those placed under arrest were a Tunisian and four Belgians, three of whom had North African roots. "This action shows how international terrorism tries to set up networks in western European nations, recruit for terror attacks in conflict areas and look for funds to finance terrorism," said Guy Verhofstadt, Belgian prime minister. In France on Wednesday, police in the Paris area arrested a fifteenth suspect, a 27-year-old Tunisian man thought to have had contacts with the Belgian group. Authorities said the Belgian network had been planning to send more volunteers to Iraq for attacks. The raids in Brussels and three other cities across the country, involving more than 200 police officers, followed media reports of the Belgian woman's suicide. Belgium has been mentioned as a breeding ground for terrorists in the past and there are currently 13 Belgian and Moroccan nationals on trial for allegedly being members of an Islamic group suspected in recent bomb attacks in Spain and Morocco. Islamic radical groups linked to al Qaeda are suspected of setting up networks in Belgium and other European nations with large Muslim communities. For many in Belgium, however, Wednesday's arrests were a chilling reminder that that no-one is immune. "Belgium is directly involved in the terrorist threat," said Laurette Onkelinx, the justice minister. The US military yesterday reported that suicide bombings fell in November to their lowest level in seven months after joint US-Iraqi operations west of the capital. In Ramadi, the US military played down reports by residents and police of widespread attacks against American and Iraqi installations there, saying only one rocket-propelled grenade was fired at an observation post, and there were no injuries. Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-12-02 |
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