Much has been made of the fact that the bomber was a woman, but note that the victims were overwhelmingly women as well. From The Guardian, Nov. 25:
Woman in suicide attack as 19 die in Baghdad bombings
A volley of explosions killed 19 people in Baghdad yesterday, including five who were caught up in a suicide attack by a woman whose bomb vest was apparently detonated remotely.Witnesses to the attack at the entrance to Baghdad’s international zone said the woman was behaving erratically at the checkpoint before her bomb exploded. Numerous witnesses told Iraqi media that the woman’s explosives were set off remotely.
The attack came moments before a much larger “sticky bomb” attached to a bus exploded, killing 13 female government employees inside. A third bomb killed a man in a shopping district.
All three explosions took place during morning rush hour, causing traffic chaos throughout central Baghdad until early afternoon. The violence follows several days of calm.
[…]
Attention was focused on the suicide bombing believed to have been carried out by a young woman who some witnesses suggested was mentally disturbed. Attacks by women are rare in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, with the exception of Diyala province, north of the capital, which has seen 27 bombings by women during the past 18 months.
Al-Qaida, which is behind the recruitment of women in Diyala, had vowed to use women to launch attacks throughout the country, believing that less intrusive security searches would allow them to get closer to targets.
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