Many elements among the insurgency in Iraq think women are 2nd class citizens.  But when something needs to be blown up look what they do…

Most often, the images of Iraqi insurgents are of men firing mortars or destroying humvees. But there’s another face — of female insurgents.

Of the hundreds of suicide bombings in Iraq, at least seven have been carried out by women — like the one at a Baghdad university in February. Some 40 people were killed.

And insurgents are using more women.

“Women are not only more difficult to stop, but they also tend to be much more successful,” says Mia Bloom, a counterterrorism expert at the University of Georgia. They are less likely to be stopped at the entrance to a restaurant, a club or a bus. And they can get in more deeply and cause more damage.

In Iraqi culture, men almost never pat down women. Insurgent leaders know women will pass right through checkpoints.

Says a lot, doesn’t it?