Suicide Bombing: Searching for Islam in a Belgian female bomber

The last ‘first’?

These days, the news (and propaganda) value of suicide bombings in Iraq has significantly decreased from the (be)heady days of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi’s grisly exploits (though that may yet change). So what’s Al Qaeda to do to shock people these days? Enter Muriel Degauque, a 38-year old Belgian who, this week, became the first European woman to commit a suicide bombing in Iraq. The qualifiers are indeed necessary – she’s not the first woman to do it in Iraq, the Arab world, or anywhere else for that matter. A historical overview will show that female suicide bombers have been used by a number of organisations, beginning with a woman from a (mostly non-Muslim) movement in Lebanon in 1985. The most famous one, Thenmuli Rajaratnam, who assassinated Indian Prime Minister Ragiv Gandhi in 1991, hailed from the (again, non-Muslim) Tamil Tigers, for whom women constituted 30-40% of their hundreds of bombers. Yet, despite the political history of these tactics, newspapers were eager to tout this new “first” and analyse Degauque’s motivations from an Islamic point of view, though links to Al Qaeda are clearly more opportunist than deliberate. Of course, accounts Degauque’s troubled early life didn’t help. A runaway with a history of drug abuse before converting to Islam, she had a series of failed relationships with immigrant men (themselves radicalised) and eventually cut ties with her western family. “She had a classic profile for a convert to radical Islam,” said security analyst Claude Moniquet. “She was clearly under the influence of her husband who was a radical.” Others felt (as do we) that alienation had a greater part to play in the recipe than the garnishes of religion or economics. “I did not see it coming,” said Muriel’s mother, Liliane Degauque. “She was very secretive, with a very independent character. I am angry at those who manipulated her,” adding (cryptically) that she was “more Muslim than Muslim.” As for the tactic of suicide bombing itself, there is enough to debate among theologians about what may be the Islamic world’s greatest exception to its own rules. But as the post 7/7 videos of Britain’s Mohammed Siddique Khan show, the bombers themselves will often tell you what their motivations are (i.e., it’s less about Islam than you may think). The list of “firsts” may be dwindling, but there still may be more before the “whys” and “what nows” are answered effectively.

Zahed Amanullah is associate editor of altmuslim.com. He is based in London, England.