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Iraq's first female suicide bomber kills 6 U.S. and Iraqi troops swept through Tal Afar in a Sept. 8-12 offensive, with Iraqi authorities claiming nearly 200 suspected militants were killed and 315 captured, though many of the insurgents in the town escaped. Since then the bulk of the forces participating in the offensive withdrew, though a U.S. base remains. It was the first known time that a woman has succeeded in carrying out a suicide bombing in Iraq since the insurgency began, though it was not the first attempt. In March, four women, reportedly sent by the insurgent group Islamic Army in Iraq, were caught in a town south of the capital before they could set off explosives belts they were wearing. In the last days of Saddam Hussein's regime, just before the April 2003 fall of Baghdad, two women detonated their car near the city of Haditha, killing three American soldiers. Gen. Ahmed Mohammed Khalaf, the regional police chief, said insurgents were exploiting the fact that women are not searched at checkpoints "because of religious and social traditions." Women and children will now be searched at Tal Afar checkpoints, he said. Still, the attack raised the prospect of more women bombers being used by the insurgency, a tactic difficult to defend against, especially during the referendum. Men and women turned out in large numbers to vote in parts of Iraq during January parliamentary elections, and images of veiled women flashing their ink-stained fingers after voting became an iconic symbol of hopes for democracy. Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, intelligence head at the Iraqi Interior Ministry, said the Tal Afar attack "rings danger alarms" and requires new techniques, including increased searches of women at sensitive locations. "But this will be a problem, because women are taking part in our new political life and finding large numbers of female security officers to search them is not an easy process," he told AP. In the past, women have played only a supportive role in the insurgency, helping smuggle equipment or feed, shelter and give medical treatment to fighters, said Nora Bensahel, an insurgency expert with Rand Corp., a nonprofit research group based in Santa Monica, Calif. "This could be a sign that the insurgency is getting greater support among a larger segment of the population, that women are getting more militant and willing to take on a greater role," Bensahel said. "It could also be a sign that the insurgents are having trouble finding male recruits."
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