How a Western woman was turned into a jihad fighter

BELGIUM - At school in southern Belgium, Muriel Degauque had been a difficult teenager who dabbled in drugs and preferred boys to books.

But even in her troubled adolescence there were few clues that this daughter of a hospital secretary would come to be known as the Belgian kamikaze.

With an attack on a United States convoy in Iraq, 37-year-old Degauque became the first European woman to launch a suicide bomb attack in the name of jihad, her explosives secured with a belt.

Her death has left her family, friends and former neighbours wondering about the past and a nation fearing for the future.

The story of Degauque, which opens a new and troubling chapter in the history of terrorism, hinges around the former bakery assistant's meeting with a Belgian of Moroccan extraction, Issam Goris, who took her to Morocco and helped her convert to Islam.

Speaking to the Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure, Degauque's parents, Jean and Liliane, described their daughter's troubled youth.

She had a talent, they said "for sticking with the difficult kids".

On one occasion they had to travel 170km to the Ardennes to find her. Of her boyfriends, her mother said: "I don't know how many there were."

And it was a man who was to change her life beyond anything imaginable.

The liaison with Goris was not her first serious relationship; she had already married and divorced a Turkish man and met and then left an Algerian.

By now Degauque was unemployed and at risk of losing her state benefits.

According to her parents, Goris said he had a house in Morocco, horses, a Mercedes and three motorbikes. They never learned whether or not this was true.

After their daughter's return to Belgium, Liliane and Jean found she had changed.

By now she lived in the rue de Merode near the Gare de Midi in Brussels. She changed her name to Myriam and wore a veil.

When visiting the family home in Monceau-sur-Sambre, Goris would eat with Jean; the women would stay in another room.

Neighbours noticed the change too. Jeannine Samain, who lives a few doors down from the Degauque family home recalled the last time she saw Degauque eight months ago: "She was veiled. By that time she would just say 'bonjour' and that was it."

Some reports suggest the couple travelled to Iraq in the autumn by car via Turkey. It appears Goris was killed by American forces.

For a month Degauque's parents had failed to make contact with their daughter, getting only her answerphone.When they heard about the suicide bomber in Iraq on the news, they thought immediately of her.

When Liliane saw police coming to her doorstep she said she knew immediately what it was about.

Belgian prosecutors say that she carried out an attack on November 9 near an American military patrol in Iraq, but that she was the only person killed.

Though they were aware of the problem of Islamic cells in Belgium, the police cannot conceal their surprise.

Federal police director Glenn Audenaert said: "It is the first time that we see a Western woman, a Belgian, marrying a radical Muslim, and is converted up to the point of becoming a jihad fighter."

Experts say converts to Islam are often malleable because their search for a new identity can make them susceptible to strong personalities.

Authorities have arrested five of 14 suspects detained in dawn raids and charged them with involvement in a terrorist network that sent volunteers to Iraq, including Degauque.

Nine were released. Those placed under arrest were a Tunisian and four Belgians, three with north African ancestry.

Authorities said the Belgian network had been planning to send more volunteers to Iraq for attacks.

- INDEPENDENT