Female bombers on increase in Iraq

Iraqi officials in the northern province of Diyala are stepping up security searches of women at checkpoints following an increase in the number of female suicide bombers. A suicide bomber who killed four security guards on Sunday is believed to have been a girl as young as 13. In the past 18 months at least 27 female bombers have come from the province.

Dozens of young women are being trained to become suicide bomebrs in an attempt to reverse improving security, Diyala authorities believe. The men killed in Sunday's attack were all former insurgents who had since become anti-al-Qaida guards. Such men are increasingly being targeted by the remnants of global jihadis networks.

Khadija Assad, a Diyala-based human rights official who advises the Iraqi government on women's affairs, said the area's al-Qaida-aligned sheikhs and local Imams are targeting women who have lost their husbands or sons during clashes with coalition forces and Iraqi troops over the past five years.