PROUD OF CIA BOMBER - WIFE OF DOUBLE AGENT

FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100107/world/afghanistan_unrest_us_jordan_turkey_1

ISTANBUL (AFP) - The Turkish wife of the Jordanian suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan expressed pride on Thursday in what he had done.

"I am proud of my husband. He carried out a great operation in this war. I hope Allah will accept his martyrdom, if he has become a martyr," Defne Bayrak told reporters in Istanbul, where she lives.

"I am not ashamed. He did this against the American occupation" of Afghanistan, she said, the Turkish news agency Anatolia reported.

Bayrak's husband, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, blew himself up at a US military base near the Pakistani border on December 30 in the deadliest attack against the Central Intelligence Agency since 1983.

Turkish police summoned Bayrak for questioning by the anti-terrorism unit in Istanbul on Thursday evening, Anatolia reported, quoting police, with the interrogation expected to last several hours.

Before police questioning, Bayrak, wearing a black chador, told journalists she did not believe her husband -- a reputed double agent -- had worked for the CIA because "he was an enemy of America".

"It is not likely my husband was a spy because he was an enemy of America... My husband could have only exploited America and Jordan," she was quoted by Anatolia as saying.

The couple married in 2001 in Istanbul, where Balawi had been studying medicine since 1995, and moved to Jordan the following year after Balawi graduated.

Neither had criminal records in Turkey, Anatolia said.

Bayrak, who has been in Istanbul with her two daughters since October, described her husband as a "believer" who was active on jihadist forums on the Internet and "a man who would not even leave the house."

She said she had not seen Balawi since she returned from Pakistan -- where he had gone to pursue medical studies -- in March 2008.

Balawi told his family he was planning to rejoin them in Turkey, she said.

Bayrak, who holds a degree in journalism, has written and translated books and penned articles for Islamist publications.


*** Cop out. You have robbed your daughters of a father. This is not heroism, this is cowardice and shirking responsibilities. MS ***