Forty-one Iraqis were killed in bombings today in the city of Karbala as Shia pilgrims gathered for the last day of a religious festival in the holy city.
The mode of the attack is still unclear. Some reports indicate that two car bombs were detonated outside one of three entrances to the city, but the governor of Karbala province claimed that a mortar struck a crowd of Iraqis outside the city.
“A mortar round was launched from fields northeast of the city,” Governor Amalheddin al Hir told AFP. “I accuse al Qaeda who are being supported by the Baath party.”
Another 144 Iraqis were wounded in the blasts, including 60 women and four children, according to Voices of Iraq.
Today’s strike is the fourth major terrorist attack in Iraq this week and the seventh since Jan. 25. Three of the bombings have occurred in Baghdad, and four in Karbala. The last four attacks have targeted Shia pilgrims traveling to Karbala.
The attacks have taken place since US and Iraqi security forces killed al Qaeda’s top suicide bomber facilitator in Iraq during a raid in Mosul on Jan. 22. Abu Khalaf, who managed al Qaeda’s facilitation network from Syria, entered Iraq sometime last fall to direct al Qaeda’s suicide bombing campaign.
Al Qaeda has targeted Shia religious processions in Iraq over the past three years in an effort to reignite sectarian tensions that nearly led to a civil war in 2006 and 2007.
The Iraqi government and the US military have said that the face of al Qaeda in Iraq has changed as the group has incorporated more Iraqis into its leadership ranks.
Major attacks in Baghdad and Karbala since Jan. 25, 2010:
Feb. 5, 2010: Thirty-one Iraqi pilgrims were killed in bombings in Karbala.
Feb. 3, 2010: Twenty-three Iraqi pilgrims were killed in a bombing in Karbala.
Feb. 2, 2010: A suicide bomber killed six Iraqis in an attack east of Karbala.
Feb. 1, 2010: A female suicide bomber killed 54 Shia pilgrims in Baghdad.
Jan. 26, 2010: A suicide bomber killed 18 Iraqis in an attack on a police forensics lab in Baghdad.
Jan. 25, 2010: Thirty-six Iraqis were killed in three suicide attacks that targeted hotels in Baghdad.
5 Comments
There was an exchange on our email group today about these bombings and the ones in Pakistan today (also targeting shias). I am reproducing it here because I think the arguments are relevant:
My own feeling is that massacres of shias will only accelerate in the areas where a shia population coexists with with salafi terrorism (meaning Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Arabian peninsula). Mainstream Muslims who are not well aware of the origins and teachings of the Saudi-inspired salafists will no doubt rant about imperialist conspiracies and so on, but the fact is, this is as inevitable as night follows day. As police forces and armies put pressure on the salafist terror networks and even the Saudi state withdraws its backing, they are going to get more desperate and in their narrative, “the enemy within” are Shias (that narrative has some similarities with the Nazi narrative about Jews in Germany: that they “betrayed us from within and conspired with our enemies”) and they are going to go after them…..they are also a soft target and killing them may incite wider sectarian violence and thus bring down the semi-secular states that are now the salafist’s enemy.
Omar
— On Fri, 2/5/10, shazia > wrote:
From: shazia Date: Friday, February 5, 2010, 9:26 AM
Dr. Omer:
I think your feeling is right. it is sad.
If only there was a solution.
I believe that solution lies is making the world a secular place. as bill maher says, “the culprit for all this misery in the world are religions.””
Shazya
Dear Shazya,
I disagree. The culprit is us. We are hominids evolved to fight for ourselves and our group and to use quick and dirty shortcuts to make quick and dirty judgments. We can and do improve, but slowly and fitfully. “Religion” is just one aspect of our evolving culture and like the rest its partly useful and partly harmful. Some forms of religion have outlived their usefulness and are now almost invariably dangerous and even fatal, but most forms are evolving in the direction of co-existence.
We should not generalize from our own experience in Pakistan (a country with a particular history based on narrow religious hatreds among Hindus and Muslims) to assume that religion plays a similarly dangerous role in ALL societies. Religion, for example, seems to be pretty much irrelevant to the mess in North Korea as racist Korean nationalism and one-party “socialist” rule play the major role there. Similarly, almost none of the tens of millions of Chinese killed in the last century died in the name of religion. This salafist eruption is getting notice because Muslims are unusually dominated by religion-based ideologies right now, but everybody in the world does not have this as problem number one and we wont have it forever either. Or at least, I hope that is the case.
Mehr Licht (more light!).
Omar
Thank you for sharing your privae discourse Omar.
Death and destruction cannot be the future of the great Iraqi people.
It will not be.
Omar I agree with your analysis. These foreign backed cutthroats will target Shia and Sunni alike because to their Arab masters more blood translates into instability which let’s them run their jihadi camps. The Pakistani government relies heavily on Saudi and gulf assistance and until that reliance is mitigated the proverbial deal with the devil continues. The only way to combat salafism is through competing ideologies not secularism. Also anti terror courts in Pakistan need teeth -even the Saudi govt will only tolerate so much from the dogs which their ideology produced. Pakistan needs to implement death sentences on captured terrorists.
Omar,
I appreciate your comments but look at another perspective.
Here is a story I came up with to explain human nature.
Lets imagine a Hollywood movie in which the protagonist just lives his life. There is no enemy, no making fun of anyone, thus no comedy. The movie is about a character involved in conversations through out the movie. No excitement/action in the movie, no violence good/bad, no hatred etc. Say the character’s wife is in the movie and ofcourse there is love between them on screen.
This movie will utterly fail at box office. Because it does not appeal to any of basic human emotions hatred, laughter or revenge. It does have love(sexual or otherwise) but either its a porn movie or a failure.
People(and nations) lose a sense of purpose(to exist) when they feel none of the basic emotions. So violence good or bad is here to stay. Whether it is exploited by leader for ulterior purposes is immaterial.
Now I am not saying that we should have violence, neither I am saying that we should not fight violence. I am just saying that a world without violence is not feasible. World Peace is not sustainable.
It’s just unfortunate consequence of human nature. I am not sure if anyone can do anything about it.
That’s why the religious leaders'(whether bin Laden, Wahhabists or the Pope) claim that their religion will bring world peace is ludicrous. Same is the case with secular leaders’ claims.
Its in violence, hatred and revenge people (and nations) find purpose. That’s why intellectually mature nations tend to face population decay. They just cease to see a reason to exist/perpetuate.
I have avoided indulging in philosophical aspects of war thus far, but since the discussion has turned in direction of why men fight wars, I’ll throw in my two cents in.
Part of what compels men to fight is very basic. Living organisms fight. It’s a fundamental part of what all animals do. It is not a design flaw. It’s part of existence. Organisms fight for food, they fight for protection, they fight for territory, and they fight for mates. Fighting is as ingrained into the natural organism as breathing.
Creatures do not have war and peace, though. That distinction belongs to man as the only truly intellectual organism. A cheetah is not at war with a gazelle, it is in its nature to hunt. It is not capable of making peace with it’s pray either. Men as natural organisms still fight for all the same reasons any other natural organism does, plus we create many more reasons in our minds. One might find the fundamental origins of war and peace in the group behavior of animals, but man has graduated both to the level of intellectual pursuit. Men reason their way into conflicts and they reason their way out of them, or they end up dead.
Peace will always be the most admirable of intellectual pursuits as long as man’s propensity for violence exists. Sometimes we will find that peace. Fighting of survival will probably always have to be an option though, considering the the struggle for existence.