The UK's Sunday Times gives further evidence of the brutal medieval thuggishness of the terrorists masquerading as insurgents in Iraq. They are slaughtering women as well as men, sometimes for merely failing to conform with their extreme version of Islamic modesty.

Hadeel was one of a growing number of Iraqi women to have fallen prey to insurgents killing those in prominent positions. Some die because their work brings them into contact with American or Iraqi officials, others because their advocacy of more rights for women offends certain religious fundamentalists.

A few seem to have been singled out for failing to conform to an extreme Islamic code of dress and for abandoning traditional lives at home.

Zeena al—Qushtaini, a divorced mother who owned one of Baghdad's best known pharmacies and had contracts with coalition forces, dressed in western clothes and mingled with women activists.

'Lady Zeena', as she was known, was wearing a diamond necklace and ring when she was shot twice in the head after being abducted. Her body was found dressed in a full—length black abaya that she would never have chosen to wear, the headscarf covered in blood.

Read it all.

Rachel Neuwirth   3 20 05