Word: sadiya
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TIME learned of Hasna from her sister Sadiya and their mother Shafiqa, who now live in hiding in Syria. (The names of the bomber and her family have been changed at the family's insistence.) Although aspects of their story are impossible to verify, important details tally with the version of events provided by Iraqi officials in Anbar and by the U.S. military. Sadiya and Shafiqa also allowed TIME to view but not record two video CDS given them by an al-Qaeda fighter. One is Hasna's last statement; the other is a recording of her suicide mission...
Hasna was distraught--not because her brother was dead but because he had not completed his mission. "She had been ready to hear about his death," says Sadiya. "But the idea that he would not be a martyr was too much for her to bear." Hasna locked herself indoors for a week, until the neighbors called Sadiya, certain her sister was dead. They broke down the door and found her comatose and surrounded by feces. Under Sadiya's care, she regained some of her health, but she continued to be haunted by the shame of Thamer's failure: she referred...
...next time Sadiya saw her sister, Hasna was almost giddy with anticipation. She told funny stories about her experiences in Syria. The jihadis' religious beliefs forbade them to touch her, so, she said, they had no idea how to measure her for the belt. She offered to give them her brassiere, but they had to first check with an imam whether Islam allowed a man to touch a woman's underclothes. (Sadiya says she never tried to talk Hasna out of her plan: "She was not the type of person whose mind you could change...
...week after Hasna's death, Sadiya received two video CDS. She says she can scarcely recognize the woman in the recordings. "It is Hasna but without Thamer," she says. "When he died, she became half of herself, and you can see half a person on the video." It is common for suicide bombers to videotape a wasiya, or will; many are posted on jihadi websites. In the recordings, the bombers, usually masked, are shown praying from the Koran, extolling the virtues of martyrdom and damning their enemies (typically the U.S.) to hell...
Although Hasna may have realized her wish for martyrdom, the legacy of her murderous deed haunts her family. A friend told Sadiya that the families of the policemen killed at Kilometer 5 have sworn to kill her if she returns to Iraq. "Our lives are finished," she says. "Thamer and Hasna ... they are lucky that they are dead. I am the unlucky one to keep living...