Jill Carroll's story | Part 4: Insurgents' women face life of leftovers and martyrdom

As we stood in the small kitchen, Abu Ali, the insurgent with the salt-and-pepper beard who had abducted me, proudly declared that his wife wanted to die.

"Um Ali wants to be a martyr. She wants to drive a car bomb!" he said, beaming. Of course, she'd have to wait, since she was four months' pregnant. It is forbidden in Islam to kill a fetus at that age, he explained. "Oh, OK, OK, oh wow," I said. I feigned confusion while I tried to think of what to say. The chaos of dinner preparation swirled around us. The kitchen was typically Iraqi: a cramped space with thin metal countertops that have no cabinets beneath. Someone had sewed a skirt for the countertop out of gaudy fabric, but one part had torn away. Next to the refrigerator was a giant freezer, covered with stickers advertising Maggi-brand soups.

Three children played around our feet, all progeny of the would-be bomber.

I was unused to captivity, still learning the boundaries, physical and mental, that my kidnappers had imposed. I didn't want to offend. But I was shocked at the talk of a mother's suicide, shocked that Um Ali would blush at her husband's praise of this plan.

"Oh, I didn't know women could be car bombers," was all I could muster.

I later was told that this was the only way women could be part of the mujahedeen. The men could have the glory of fighting in battle. Women got to blow themselves up.

Meanwhile, the big silver platters of food were ready. Men carried them to insurgents meeting behind the closed door of the sitting room. Based on their comments, this house seemed to be in western Baghdad or near Abu Ghraib.

Suicide bombings by women in Iraq


Some 50 women have carried out suicide attacks worldwide in the past five years, according to a report by the RAND Corp. Since 2003, the report cites at least five suicide-bombing cases in Iraq, including an Iraqi woman who traveled to Jordan but failed in her mission.

April 3, 2003: Two women blew up a car at a checkpoint in western Iraq, killing themselves and three Army Rangers.

Sept. 28, 2005: An Iraqi woman disguised as a man stood among job applicants before detonating an explosive belt outside a U.S. military facility in Tal Afar. Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility, calling her a "blessed sister" affiliated with the Malik Suicidal Brigade.

Nov. 9, 2005: A failed car bombing of U.S. troops killed a female suicide bomber and injured one soldier. The bomber was identified as Muriel Degauque from Belgium, who converted to Islam after marrying a Moroccan.

Nov. 13, 2005: Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, an Iraqi from Fallujah and a would-be suicide bomber, was arrested. She confessed on Jordanian TV that she had participated in a suicide-bomb plot the previous week that killed 57 people at three hotels in Amman, Jordan. She said her explosives belt failed to detonate.

May 4, 2006: A female bomber removed an explosives-laden vest when she was denied access to a Baghdad courthouse and left it in a bag outside the building. It exploded and killed at least nine people and wounded 46.

The Christian Science Monitor

I talked with Um Ali and other women in the kitchen. Yes, I traveled back and forth between countries for my job, I said. They replied that it was wrong for them to work, that they left school at age 12 to learn to cook and keep house.

The dinner platters returned, with the food ravaged: rice everywhere, bones with the chicken chewed off, nothing left but scraps. And the women sat and began to eat the scraps.

I couldn't believe it. After all the time they'd spent preparing the meal, they got leftovers.

But I sat with them. And, as I often would do with women over the next three months, I ate from the remains of the communal stew.

Grim child's play

Held against my will, I learned more about Iraqi insurgents than I would have dreamed possible. On one level, I got a firsthand look at the way they live. While I was imprisoned alone in rooms for long periods, I also was allowed to mix with insurgent families in some of the houses where I was held. I even played with their youngest children, a small joy that helped me endure.

On another level, I heard a lot about what they think, about themselves and the United States. I wanted them to see me as more valuable alive than dead, so I told them that I could write their story if I was freed. They seized on this idea, perhaps to a degree I hadn't anticipated. After dinner, some of the men drew up plastic chairs in a walkway area in the middle of the house, and held an impromptu news conference, minus questions, and with me as the lone member of the press.

They insisted that they weren't terrorists, that they were just defending their country against an occupation. They had nothing against Americans, they said. It was the U.S. government that was their enemy.

"If you come to us as a guest to our country, we will open all of our homes to you and feed you and you are welcome," one of the men said that night.

"But if you come to us as an enemy, we will drink your blood and there will not be one of you left standing."

I hoped the little briefing would help establish my persona as a reporter. I never seriously considered the idea of converting [to Islam].

As I learned more about this brand of Islam, and the life of women tied by marriage or family to the insurgency, the more convinced I was that I couldn't even pretend to convert.

As long as I was seen as a reporter and a Christian woman, I figured they might tolerate my missteps. But if I acquiesced to conversion, even if it was insincere, would a "good Muslim" — like Um Ali — also be required to embrace martyrdom?

At moments such as this, I thought they were becoming more comfortable with me. Perhaps they wouldn't kill me.

Um Ali's son, Bakr, was 3, cute and spoiled rotten. He'd jump in my lap, and we'd play a little game: He'd put his nose against mine, his head against my head, and we would whisper really quietly together, him in Arabic, me in English.

In the early days of my captivity, we'd do it often, and I'd look in his little eyes, and it really comforted me. It felt so good just to hug somebody.

Still, getting through each hour was an accomplishment. Every day was so long. Um Ali would do something nice, like bring me some tea, and I'd try to react normally.

But then I'd remember that they'd killed Alan, my interpreter.

That refrain was constantly in my head: Don't be fooled, Jill. They killed Alan. Don't be fooled.