A teenage girl wearing a vest packed with explosives turned herself in — still wearing the vest — rather than go through with a suicide bombing in Iraq.
The girl, whose age has been reported as both 13 and 15, surrendered to Iraqi police in Baquba, a city North of Baghdad that serves as the capital of Iraq’s restive Diyala province, where Sunni Arab Al Qaeda militants are waging war on U.S. and Iraqi forces, the U.S. military said, according to Reuters.
"Reports are that she approached the IPs (Iraqi police) saying she had the vest on and didn’t want to go through with it," U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Commander David Russell told Reuters on Monday. "If she was forced to put on the vest or if she did it voluntarily, that is still being reviewed."
AP reports that Iraqi police publicly questioned the girl and paraded her in front of reporters, pressing her to confess she was planning the bombing. The girl claimed two women put the vest on her. Police released videos of the arrest and public interrogation to the media on Monday.
The girl gave her first name as Rania and said she was born in 1993. But she appeared confused, giving conflicting answers about whether she knew the two women who put the vest packed with 33 pounds of explosives on her. One policeman could be heard in the video saying she was initially unable to speak when police found her because she had been given drugs.
The girl denied that she planned on carrying out an attack, saying she had been instructed to remove the vest when she got home. She also said the women claimed the vest wouldn’t detonate.
Suicide bombings by women and girls have become increasingly common in Iraq this year, as Al Qaeda and other insurgent forces look for ways to get the explosives beyond checkpoints without being searched.
Female suicide bombers attacked Shi’ite pilgrims in July, killing dozens. Many attacks by female suicide bombers have taken place in Diyala. U.S. military officials say the number of female bombers has more than tripled from eight in 2007 to 29 this year.
"The surrender of the suicide bomber indicates that the Iraqis are continuing to reject Al Qaeda and its practices," said U.S. military spokesman Major Jon Pendell.