Utter barbarity ... suicide jihadi blows up child she was cradling
HOLDING a toddler with one hand and a trigger in the other, this woman is on a suicide mission.
Moments later, she blew herself up in a bid to slaughter soldiers in Iraq, taking the child’s life too.
Cornered into a shrinking area of Mosul prior to yesterday’s ousting, Islamic State militants have resorted to sending female suicide bombers among thousands of desperate civilians.
In footage captured by an Iraqi television station, the woman posed as one of the many fleeing a newly liberated area of the city last week before blowing herself up near troops.
But the vest failed to go off until she had walked some distance away, the cameraman said.
She and her child were killed instantly, while two soldiers and several civilians were injured.
In the chilling footage, another woman holding the hand of a young girl clutching a teddy bear could be seen in the back- ground clambering over rubble. The female bombers, believed to be brides of IS fighters, have been hiding among residents before setting off their explosive vests.
Preventing the attacks is difficult because soldiers do not ask women to lift up their clothes to check for bombs.
Some 38 women have detonated suicide vests to target civilians and enemy forces in the northern Iraqi city in the past month. At least 20 of those did so in just five days last week, a local security official said.
One general claimed they were even using their own children as human shields.
Lieutenant General Sami alAridi said: ‘The women are fighting with their children right beside them. It’s making us hesitant to use airstrikes to advance. If it weren’t for this we could be finished in just a few hours.’