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Bombers include first known suicide couple
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-12 09:35
A married couple involved in the deadly attacks on hotels in Jordan is the
first known husband-and-wife team to take part in a suicide bombing, though
relatives of Palestinian bombers have helped plan attacks, an Israeli
counter-terror expert said Friday.
Al-Qaida in Iraq said four Iraqis, including a husband and wife, carried out
the suicide bombings against three Amman hotels Wednesday, which killed 57
people in addition to the bombers.
Boaz Ganor, head of a private Israeli think-tank, The International Policy
Institute for Counter Terrorism, said a married couple would be unique in the
annals of suicide bombing.
"There's never been one that I can think of," he told The Associated Press.
Suicide bombers in Israel do not work alone: They are often preceded by a
scout who reconnoiters targets and a courier who carries the actual explosive
charge around roadblocks to a rendezvous point. The bomber is usually brought to
the target by a driver, who also ensures that the attacker does not lose his or
her nerve at the last moment.
Some accomplices are thought to have been relatives or spouses of the
attacker.
At the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel in January 2004, Reem Rayishi, a
22-year-old mother of two, blew herself up, killing three Israeli soldiers and a
security guard. Her husband, Mohammed, claimed immediately after the attack that
he had driven her to Erez and that he was proud of her.
The militant group Hamas, however, said recently that Rayishi was actually
driven by a top Hamas operative killed in an Israeli airstrike a few weeks ago.
In March 2002, Gaza resident Miram Farhat appeared in a farewell video with
her son, just before he was killed in a shooting and grenade attack on a Jewish
settlement that killed five Israeli teens. "I wish I had 100 boys like Mohammed.
I'd sacrifice them for the sake of God," Farhat says in the video.
Last month Israeli security officials said they had arrested a West Bank
woman, Samar Sabih, who had been trained by Hamas as the first female bombmaker
and had been teaching her husband. The husband also has been picked up by the
Israelis.
There were strong family ties among three militants who died in Egypt in
April. Police were chasing Ehab Yousri Yassin, a suspect in a bomb attack on a
Cairo street market, when he blew himself up. A short time later, Yassin's
sister and fiancee fired on a tourist bus, wounding two people, then shot
themselves dead.
Ganor also noted Chechnya's "black widows," or female bombers who turn to
violence after losing husbands or male relatives in the Chechen fighting.
"There also you have the link of carrying out an action as a result of the
marriage connection," he said.
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