Belgians shocked at bomber's identity

MONCEAU-SUR-SAMBRE, Belgium — She was the typical girl-next-door — pretty daughter of a hospital secretary who grew up on a quiet street in this rust-belt town and finished high school before becoming a baker's assistant.

Years later she was in Baghdad, carrying out a suicide bombing in the name of jihad — a disturbing sign of the reach of Islamic militancy.

Neighbors say Muriel Degauque, who blew herself up last month at age 38 trying to attack U.S. troops, had lived a conventional life but became heavily involved in Islam after marrying an Algerian.

"She was absolutely normal as a kid," said Jeannine Samain, who lives a few doors down from the Degauque family home in the shadows of a towering coal pile. "When it snowed, they would go to the hill together with the sled."

She recalled the last time she saw Degauque, eight months ago: "She was veiled. By that time she would just say 'bonjour' and that was it."

Belgian prosecutors say Degauque carried out an attack Nov. 9 near an American military patrol in Iraq after entering the country from Syria a month ago, and was the only person killed.

"It is the first time that we see a Western woman, a Belgian, marrying a radical Muslim and is converted up to the point of becoming a jihad fighter," federal police director Glenn Audenaert said.

Authorities say Degauque had been a member of a terror group that embraced al-Qaida's ideology. The group included her second husband, a Belgian of Moroccan origin who entered Iraq with Degauque and was killed in murky circumstances while trying to set up a separate suicide bombing.

Experts said converts to Islam like Degauque are often easy prey for extremists because their search for a new identity can make them impressionable.

"The phenomenon is not really new for the security services, but it is for the public. For them it is a real shock," said Edwin Bakker, a terrorism expert at the Clingendael Institute in the Hague, Netherlands. "They are looking for ... a new sense to their life."

Media reports said Degauque had problems with drugs and alcohol as an adolescent but later turned to a particularly strict form of Islam. Experts say that is a common pattern for Western-born recruits to Islamic radicalism.