BAGHDAD - In video footage released by Iraqi police, a teenage girl with an explosives vest tightly strapped to her body is seen handcuffed to a metal grid, her head repeatedly falling forward 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 Baqubah, where the girl was caught Sunday, said she told them she was fitted with the explosives by female relatives of her husband, whom she married five months ago.

In displaying the dazed teenager -- who says she was born in 1993, which would make her 14 or 15 -- police wanted to deal another blow to al-Qaida in Iraq's reputation, officials said.

Police wanted to "show the desperate level" that the terrorist group has reached, "with members of one family driving each other to death," said Ibrahim Bajilan, head of the provincial council in the Diyala province, of which Baqubah is the capital.

In publicizing the details of the case, police also may be trying to demonstrate that they're effective in fighting the insurgents and to turn more Iraqis against the militants.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have struggled for years to contain Sunni insurgents in Diyala. The province has been the scene of much of the recent violence in Iraq, even as the rest of the country witnessed a significant drop in attacks.

The arrest of the girl, who gave her first name as Rania, heightened concern about a rise in suicide bombings by women in Iraq.

Many Iraqi women wear long robes, ideal for covering bulky suicide vests, and Iraqi policemen hesitate to pat them down at checkpoints because of cultural taboos.

The circumstances of the girl's arrest remained unclear. U.S. officials said she turned herself in after being hooked to the explosives against her will. Local police said she was caught by a police patrol after arousing suspicion while walking in downtown Baqubah.

The video begins with Rania standing in a street, both hands cuffed to a metal grid attached to a wall behind her. A police officer is later heard saying she apparently had been drugged.

For several minutes, officers surround her, speaking among themselves. One opens the robe in the front, and shouts out to his colleagues, apparently to confirm he spotted a vest.

One officer pulls out what appears to be a wire before removing the vest, and she is left standing in a sleeveless, ankle-length orange undergarment.

Police later said the vest was packed with 33 pounds of explosives.

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