Female suicide bombers

Woman who blew herself up wasn’t first to do so,

BEIRUT— The woman who blew herself up in a suburban Paris apartment during a police operation Wednesday was far from the world’s first female suicide bomber.

Here’s a look at the history of female suicide bombers in the Arab world and beyond: Lebanon and Palestinian territories During Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in 2000, several women belonging to leftist groups blew themselves up targeting Israeli forces. Among those women was Sanaa Mheidly, 17, who blew up a car rigged with explosives in an Israeli convoy in 1985, killing and injuring more than a dozen Israeli soldiers. She became the most prominent and the first to carry out such an attack in the Arab world.

In the Palestinian territories, about a dozen women have carried out suicide attacks against Israelis since 2002, including 27-year-old para- medic Wafa Idris, who blew herself up in downtown Jerusalem on Jan. 27, 2002. Al Qaeda in Iraq A decade ago, Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi sent members of his group to carry out bombings in his home country of Jordan. In that Nov. 9, 2005, assault, Sajida Al-Rishawi and her husband, Ali Al-Shamari attacked the Radisson SAS hotel. Al-Shamari set off his explosive belt. Al-Rishawi fled and was later arrested and executed.