Mick Hartley

We've seen the theory, courtesy of Lebanon's Al-Jadid/New TV: poster girls for martyrdom. Now here's the reality:

Police say they wanted to show "the desperate level al Qaeda has reached" when they released video footage of a teenage girl with an explosives vest strapped to her body.

In the footage the girl is seen handcuffed to a metal grid, her head repeatedly falling forward in apparent exhaustion as several policemen huddle around her.

After several minutes, the officers lift her flowered robe, remove the white vest hidden underneath and then take her for questioning, videotaping her in the presence of reporters. They prod her to confess to plans to stage a suicide attack, but she denies the allegation.

Police in Baqouba, where the girl – who says she was born in 1993 – was caught on Sunday, said she was fitted with the explosives by female relatives of her husband, whom she married five months ago.