ISTANBUL — A Jordanian doctor-turned-suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees at a base in Afghanistan is regarded by his family as a martyr in Islam’s holy war against the United States, his wife said Thursday.
Defne Bayrak, the Turkish wife of bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, lauded her husband’s Dec. 30 attack to Turkish journalists in Istanbul.
“I am proud of him,” Bayrak told the Dogan news agency. “My husband has carried out a great operation in such a war. May God accept his martyrdom.”
She later told the state-run Anatolia news agency, “My husband did this against the U.S. invasion.”
Turkish police questioned Bayrak after her remarks Thursday, her family said. Police confirmed she was questioned and released.
Bayrak, 30, met her husband while he was studying medicine in Istanbul. They married there in 2001 and moved to Jordan in 2002, when he graduated.
Bayrak, an Arabic-language translator for some pro-Islamic Turkish media outlets, said it was not surprising that her husband joined the jihad because he often wrote on jihad websites when they lived in Jordan.
Turkish media reported Thursday that Bayrak was the author of a book titled “Osama bin Laden, the Che Guevera of the East.”
The Associated Press
