Female suicide bomber kills six at Iraqi army recruitment center

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A woman strapped with explosives and disguised as a man blew herself up outside an Iraqi army recruiting center in a northern town Wednesday, killing at least six people and wounding 30 in the first known attack by a female suicide bomber in the country's bloody insurgency.

Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for the blast, saying in an Internet posting that it was carried out by "a blessed sister."

The attack in Tal Afar, where U.S. and Iraqi forces routed militants in a major offensive two weeks ago, demonstrated the difficulty of maintaining security in the towns in the large northwestern region stretching to the Syrian border, where insurgents are most active.

In Washington, President Bush predicted a surge in violence in Iraq before the Oct. 15 referendum on the new constitution, but said the militants would fail. "Our troops are ready for them," he said.

The woman was disguised as a man in a white dishdasha — a traditional male robe — and a kaffiyeh head scarf to blend in with the other applicants lined up to join the Iraqi army, which takes only men, said Maj. Jamil Mohammed Saleh in Tal Afar.

She was standing at the first of three checkpoints outside the center when she detonated explosives hidden under her clothes and packed with metal balls, Saleh said.

It was the first known instance that a woman has carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq. In October 2003, a female bomber was caught trying to enter a government building in Baghdad before she could detonate her explosives.

Saddam Hussein's regime used female bombers at least once during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, when two women blew up a car at a checkpoint near the city of Haditha, killing three American soldiers days before the April 2003 fall of Baghdad.

"Today's attack seems to represent a new tactic by the insurgents to use women who are rarely searched at Tal Afar's checkpoints because of religious and social traditions that grant women special treatment," Gen. Ahmed Mohammed Khalaf, the regional police chief, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

For that reason, he said, women and children will now be searched there the same way that men are.

The al-Qaida in Iraq claim came in a Web posting signed by the spokesman for the organization, Abu Maysara al-Iraqi.