IRAQI security forces have arrested a woman whose boyfriend convinced her to send her little boy on a suicide mission and then failed to stop the attack after she had a change of heart.
Sunni widow Suad al-Obaidi, 47, was arrested on Friday along with her allegedly al-Qaeda boyfriend, a Diyala police officer said.
She was arrested in Diyala province, while the boyfriend, Hamid Alwan, 53, was detained in Baghdad.
According to the officer, Alwan convinced Obaidi to send nine-year-old Murtada Latif Kadhem to bomb a Shi'ite mosque in Khales, north of Baghdad, several years ago.
Alwan "took her son with her ... by car to the Shi'ite mosque but, on the way there, she started to cry about her son," the officer said.
"He put her out of the car, and took the son, who was wearing an explosive belt, to the mosque, where he blew himself up."
Security officials said the December 29, 2006 attack killed at least nine people, including the imam of the mosque, and wounded at least eight.
A few months later, Alwan tried to convince Suad to send her 18-year-old son Kadhem Latif Kadhem on a suicide attack, but he fled to the home of his married sister, Hanna.
Diyala province, north of Baghdad, was the scene of bloody sectarian fighting that left thousands dead.
The arrests were the result of information received by police after attacks on anti-Qaeda Sahwa (Awakening) militia in Diyala province on Thursday.
"We arrested a group of terrorists and through the investigation we reached Hamid and arrested him in Baghdad Friday," the officer said.
On Thursday, a suicide bomber and a car bomb targeted Sahwa militiamen near Baquba, north of Baghdad, killing five people and wounding 26, an army officer and a doctor said.
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