The woman ridicules the Iraqi police who question her about ties to suicide bombers.
"Someone telling me to explode?" Umm Omar says. "I have to be both mother and father to my children. Why would I blow myself up?"
Strangely, she even laughs at some points of the interrogation. Umm Omar was detained along with her two daughters in a recent raid in Baquba.
All of them are suspected of wanting to blow themselves up in suicide attacks. She was brought to one of the police offices here for questioning.
Covered in an abaya -- black Islamic dress -- she has a broad face and large eyes. She sits on a thin mattress smoking the cigarette an Iraqi police officer offered her.
Her interrogator confronts her about a letter the Iraqi police say they uncovered on the raid on her home. The letter is addressed to "Umm Omar" from the local al Qaeda emir Abu Dawood.
"Good news for you my sister, Umm Omar," it says. "Your sister Fatima became a martyr after an operation in Mafraq district, and God enabled her to carry out this blessed operation.
"Know that she did not hesitate in confronting the infidels and tyranny. We pray to God that you follow her in God's course. We inform you, Umm Omar, that this letter is very confidential."
Umm Omar shrugs it off. "I cannot read, so why would he send this to me?"
She goes by the name of Umm Omar. In the Middle East, Umm -- means mother -- followed by the eldest son's name, in her case Omar. She says the Umm Omar reference could be just about any woman in Iraq. She also denies having a sister named Fatima.
Her profile fits that of other women who have carried out suicide attacks.
Let's not forget that it is permissible to lie to anyone standing in your way of a suicide mission according to the Koran. I'm quite certain that this is how the 9/11 hijackers would have behaved if they had been caught before the attacks.
"Why are you arresting me? I am but a humble peasant who's here in the great land of America!"
Sound familiar?
Travis
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