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Not only mental scars and financial trouble, the would-be bombers' biggest dilemma but also the stigma and ostracizing by their own community. (Google) |
BAGHDAD — Um Omar's life is worse than death.
She faces a terrible punishment, being one of the former female bombers of Al-Qaeda, who renounced the group but could not escape a lifelong curse.
"I don’t have a normal life anymore," the Iraqi mother told IslamOnline.net from her home near the northern city of Mosul.
"If I had committed suicide I would have had ended with my life, but now that I have desisted, it hasn’t been different."
Um Omar used to be a member of Al-Khansaa, an all-female suicide-bomber wing of Al-Qaeda.
Like many in the group, the woman has joined Al-Qaeda ranks to revenge the killing of her loved ones – her husband, her father and her son – to the vicious war cycle in the country.
Today, she is one of some 23 women who abandoned the group after being disillusioned by their ideology.
But leaving Al-Qaeda has not ended the problems for the disgruntled woman, leaving her only with a shattered life.
Living among other former female bombers in Duluiyah, Mosul and its outskirts, Um Omar still suffers from psychological scars.
She received religious support by a local Muslim leader, who helped her understand that committing suicide was only to bring sufferings to her children.
Worse still, she has no resources now to feed her children
"I don’t have money," Um Omar laments. "When I left Al-Qaeda they didn’t give me anything."
According to Al Khansaa deserters, every month more than 8 new members – suicide bombers -- are being registered by the group and then being trained in a process that takes about six months.
Earlier this month, a female suicide bomber killed 35 Shiite pilgrims, mostly women and children, who had stopped on their way to a religious ceremony south of Baghdad.
More than 20 bombings were carried out by women last year.
Stigma
Not only mental scars and financial trouble, Um Omar's biggest dilemma is the stigma and ostracizing by her own community.
"People don’t accept the idea that we regretted what we were doing and will consider us bombers and members of Al-Qaeda until the day we die," she says.
Um Omar and other former women bombers are forbidden to veil their faces, so they can always be recognized on the street.
She can not find a job without being recognized as a criminal, and relies on her children to go to the closest market to pick food for the family.
"My children were forced to leave school because someone was happy to tell them that their mother was a suicide bomber."
Not only that, she receives death threats that fills her heart with fear over the future of her children.
"I have received threats nearly everyday."
Out of the 23 women who left al-Qaeda, two had already been killed and their deaths have been deemed by the local police as remains of sectarian violence rather than targeting.
"All them are under serious risk," said Col. Abdallah Rayad, senior officer in Mosul battalion.
"We can not keep blind a blind eye towards it but we can not guarantee them security. We just monitor them to see if they don’t go back to what they were doing before."
"In somehow they are reaping what they sowed."
But Suha Abdel-Kareem, an aid worker working in Duluiyah and nearby villages, says the life of these women will not change if they remained haunted by the past.
"They cannot work because they are seen as terrorists. Their children listen to offenses at streets and schools. They are eating what people are offering them because even the monthly food ration isn't being given to some of them."
Abdel-Kareem warns that if the government doesn’t help these women get a second chance in life, they will return back to the same path.
"How the government wants them to live a normal life away from terrorism if they don't offer them basic services.
"The day they feel pressured… they won't think twice before accepting to go back to Al-Qaeda."
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