Western Resistance

« Iraq: Sunni Islamic Party Cleric Murdered | | Iran: Senior Cleric Wants University Professors to Undergo Islamic Training »

December 1, 2005

Belgium: Woman Muslim Suicide Bomber is Named

At last, details of the Belgian woman who became the first European female suicide bomber. The Australian Daily Telegraph states that the woman, who is called in the Belgian media, the "Belgian Kamikaze" was 38-year old Muriel Degauque.

On November 9, she blew herself up in Baghdad, killing six other people.

Muriel Degauque is described as someone who was a former runaway and experimenter with drugs before she married a Muslim man and then became arch-fundamentalist.

Currently five people are being detained in custody: three Belgians of North African origin, a Tunisian and a Belgian, after raids yesterday in Brussels, Antwerp and Paris saw 14 people arrested.

Of those others, one was released on conditional bail and the rest were freed. The five detained men are thought to have been involved with forgery and fake documentation. Police said the men provided logistics and support for attacks against US targets in Iraq. The suspicion is that the arrests were made to avert more attacks upon these American targets.

The mother of the suicide bomber Muriel Degauque gave an interview with the Parisian newspaper, Le Parisien. The woman said that when she hears the news about the "Belgian Kamikaze" she had a suspicion it may have been her daughter.

"For three weeks, I had tried to call her but there was no answer."

The mother said Muriel's connection with Islam began in 2000 when she became involved with North African men and eventually married a Belgian of Moroccan descent, whom she blamed for "brainwashing" her daughter.

"She became more Muslim than Muslim," she said. "When she first converted, she wore a simple veil. That was not so far from normal even if it is strange for a Belgian. But, with her last husband ... she wore a chador."

A chador is a head-to-toe dress worn by devout Muslim women.

"The religion was totally ingrained in her. She only lived for that. She had learned Arabic," she said.

Muriel gradually became estranged from the family and failed to visit her mother when she was in hospital.

Muriel was dismissive of her mother when the subject was mentioned later. Her mother Liliane said to Le Parisien: "I'm angry at those who manipulated her."

USA Today has more details, stating that Muriel, daughter of a hospital secretary, had lived at Monceau-sur-Sambret, near the industrial city of Charleroi. She had seemed to fairly conventional life according to neighbours, but after her marriage to an Algerian man, she changed dramatically. One neighbour said that she had last seen Muriel Degauque eight months ago and by that time she was wearing a veil.

Authorities say that her second husband, who was Belgian of Moroccan descent, went with her to Iraq, and is believed to have died. He "was killed in murky circumstances while trying to set up a separate suicide bombing."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at December 1, 2005 6:05 PM

Comments

Post a comment