HILLAH, Iraq — Sawsan Barrak turns on her home computer and kisses the picture that appears on the screen. It is of a slight, blond-haired, blue-eyed young woman with a warm smile and a look of determination -- not dissimilar from Barrak herself.
The screensaver is Barrak's tribute to Fern Holland, 33, an American homecoming queen turned aid worker who was establishing women's centers across Iraq when she was slain a week ago. Gunmen ran her vehicle off the road and shot her and two colleagues to death, according to U.S. officials.
Four more American civilians, relief workers with the Southern Baptist International Mission Board, were killed Monday evening in the northern city of Mosul, the military said. The board on its website said the workers, including Karen Denise Watson of Bakersfield, were researching needs for humanitarian projects.
To those who knew Holland, her story is in many ways a classic American tale of heartfelt commitment, a gift for inspiring others, and a naive belief that determination could trump danger.
Barrak and other Iraqis who worked on the women's centers say Holland had the rare ability to shorten the distance between the two cultures, knowing instinctively how to express the yearnings that Iraqis have in their own hearts but have not yet voiced.
"Fern treated me as a sister; she built my character," said Barrak, who trained as a chemical engineer and now serves on the board of the Hillah women's center. "She said to me, 'You, the women of Iraq with higher education, you need to build women's rights here.' "
But Holland was traversing dangerous territory. In an Islamic country where fundamentalism is on the rise, the support of women's rights is seen by some groups as an insolent challenge to the centuries-old power structure of family, tribe and mosque.
Month by month, Iraq's more conservative religious forces are wielding more power and pushing to limit women's roles to those of wife, housekeeper and mother.
In Karbala, one of the most holy cities for Shiite Muslims, where Holland opened a women's center just weeks ago, representatives of fundamentalist cleric Muqtader Sadr made no bones about their group's disapproval.
"We have had many young men come to us and say they want to do something about these women's centers, which are trying to harm Islam," said Sheik Hamza Taie, the deputy director of Sadr's office in Karbala.
