BAGHDAD, Dec. 6 : Fifteen-year-old Rania al Ambaki, a resident of Baquba, an al-Qaeda hotspot north of Baghdad, was made into a human bomb at an Iraq security checkpoint recently.

According to a CBS report, Ambaki was promptly immobilized, and officers jammed cell phone signals that could detonate the explosives. Thereafter, her suicide vest was removed.

Baquba is known to be a recruiting ground for women suicide bombers. Last year, there were eight women bombers. So far this year, there have been 35.

Rania, who is now in a jail, says she is thankful that she did not blow up, and adds that she had no idea that the vest she was wearing was a bomb.

Recalling the incident, she says members of her family, including her husband, had helped her to put it on.

Rania said through a translator: "They told me that it was a kind of medical vest for back pain."

Gen. Abdul Kareem Qalaf helped interrogate Rania. He said: "She has a low IQ and is a vulnerable teenage girl."

When asked why there were so many women suicide bombers, Qalaf said through a translator: "Al Qaeda uses these people - the mentally ill, children and very young women. This shows al Qaeda is failing." (ANI)