BAGHDAD — A female suicide bomber detonated her explosives vest in a popular marketplace in Diyala province Wednesday, killing at least eight people and injuring seven others.
The attack was the fourth suicide bombing by a woman in Iraq since November, all of them in Diyala, where Iraq's insurgency has been centered for much of the last year.
It occurred on the same day that small-arms fire killed three U.S. soldiers conducting operations in Salahuddin province, north of the capital, the American military said. Two other soldiers were wounded and evacuated to a hospital. The soldiers' identities were not released pending notification of their families.
Wednesday's suicide assault occurred in Khan Bani Saad, a farm village midway between Baghdad and the provincial capital of Baqubah.
"After the explosion, I went outside to see the burning bodies thrown on the ground, and the remains," said Abu Yousif Mtorsi, who sells food at the market. "I saw some children there. Some of them had their eyes open but couldn't speak [or] move -- and some showed involuntary body movements . . . they were between being dead and living."
The perpetrator, witnesses told Mtorsi, was wearing a traditional abaya covering.
"Honestly, my heart was aching worrying about my son, who went to one of the market restaurants to have breakfast," Mtorsi said. "I was looking for him among the dead bodies and those injured. I was thinking that he might be one of them. Later, I felt guilty [because] my son is no different from the innocents lying there, but my son showed up and started helping in evacuating the victims."
Female suicide bombers remain rare, but the U.S. military said they are an increasing threat.
"We have indications that Al Qaeda is trying to recruit more female suicide bombers," said Col. Donald Bacon, a U.S. military spokesman. "They think that the female suicide bombers can infiltrate defenses more easily or they may have more chance for success in their operation. They tend not to be searched as closely."
Military officials said they have reduced the flow of foreign terrorists into Iraq nearly by half in recent months, forcing the Al Qaeda in Iraq group, a Sunni Arab militant formation, to look for new ways to recruit suicide bombers.
"They've had to go out and find different ways to compensate," Bacon said. "I think it's an act of desperation."
