Woman caught with bomb under burqa

Afghan intelligence agents said they had detained a woman hiding a bomb-filled waistcoat of the type used in Taliban suicide attacks under her all-covering burqa.

The 55-year-old woman was followed from the eastern province of Kunar after a tip-off and arrested in the town of Jalalabad, an official in Kunar's intelligence department told AFP.

"She was carrying the suicide waistcoat for the Taliban. We had intelligence reports that she was working for the Taliban," said the official, who asked not to be identified by name.

The woman was being questioned "to find out more about her network," he said.

Most Afghan women still wear the burqa, which was mandatory under the 1996-2001 Taliban government, and cannot be searched by men at security checkposts.

The Taliban, the main Islamic militant group behind a bloody insurgency, have stepped up their attacks in recent years, notably their use of suicide bombings.

Hundreds of people, most of them civilians, have been killed in about 140 such attacks in Afghanistan this year alone.

In neighbouring Pakistan, also facing a wave of Taliban-linked unrest, a woman in a burqa blew herself up at an army checkpost in early December, killing only herself.

It was the country's first such attack involving a woman, police said.

AFP
 

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