In recent years there have been a handful of female suicide bombers in Iraq and other regions of the world, but the Taliban claims it never used women to carry out suicide attacks — until now. It’s believed the Taliban was behind two unrelated attacks this weekend that involved women, and took the lives of more than a dozen people.
The Pakistani Taliban has taken responsibility for sending a husband and wife to perform a suicide attack on a police station in northwestern Pakistan (pictured above). According to the Associated Press, the two entered the station on Saturday saying they wanted to lodge a complaint, then attacked with grenades and machine guns once inside. After a five-hour standoff with police, the two blew themselves up, killing eight officers and two civilians.
A Pakistani Taliban spokesman claims that this is the first time they’ve used a female suicide bomber, but authorities say a woman was behind an attack on a World Food Program food-distribution center that killed 45 people in northwestern Pakistan last year.
The second incident claimed the lives of fewer people, but is still terribly disturbing. An 8-year-old Afghan girl was murdered today when she was unwittingly forced to carry a bomb. The New York Times reports that Taliban insurgents in Kabul tricked the girl into carrying a package wrapped in cloth. When she was close to a police vehicle, they detonated the bomb remotely. Only the girl was killed, and the local police chief says her body was “taken to a nearby security check post, and the police called her relatives.”
Taliban Use Husband, Wife Bombers [AP]
Afghan Girl Tricked Into Carrying Bomb, Officials Say [NYT]