Baghdad, 21 March (AKI) - Al-Qaeda has decided to enlist widows to carry out suicide bombings in Iraq, according to a study by the Voices of Iraq news agency.

During the last three months, six suicide attacks were carried out by women. A total 10 women have carried out suicide attacks in Iraq since April 2003 , according to statistics from the United States army.

As recently as Wednesday, a woman blew herself up in volatile Diyala province, killing five people. On Monday, a female suicide bomber blew herself up among a group of civilians in the holy Shia city of Karbala, killing 47 people and wounding 75 others.

Police investigators established that the women were both middle-aged and recently widowed.

The majority of of female suicide bombers come from Anbar and Diyala provinces, the report said.

"Al-Qaeda is active in those two provinces, and military operations that kill this organisation's elements are also active there," the report cited sociologist Fari al-Obedi as saying.

"The majority of female bombers' motivations are getting revenge for a deceased husband or family member, or due to religious extremism," he said.

The women are recruited and trained by men, but are much more effective, because police have not been searching women, the report noted. The fact that many are veiled will make searching them more difficult, it said.

Mohammed Al-Askari, advisor to the Iraqi defence ministry , quoted by the report, attributed the phenomenon of female suicide bombers to "the reduction in al-Qaeda's influence in Iraq." They are used to "shame" men into Jihad, he said.

"Interrogations revealed that most of these women are relatives of al-Qaeda elements," a senior Iraqi military official, Major General Qassim Atta was quoted as saying.

"Preliminary investigations indicate that some women may not know that they will be used as suicide bombers," Atta said.

A religious edict (fatwa) issued by several imams close to al-Qaeda state that women have the same rights as men to wage Jihad.