Explosions killed at least 26 people across Iraq on Thursday, most of them Shiite pilgrims taking part in a holy mourning ceremony, authorities said, raising fears of further sectarian attacks at the approach of Shiite Islam's most solemn occasion.
The deaths came three days before the climax of Ashoura, when hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims converge on the central city of Karbala to mourn the killing of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussein, in a 680 A.D. battle that sealed the split between Shiites and Sunnis.
While Thursday's attacks were smaller than similar bombings in previous years, they demonstrated the continued ability and intent of insurgents to incite sectarian tensions.
Al Jazeera had to report that Shia were attacked, but they quoted a journalist in Baghdad who said "They were not by the hand of al-Qaeda - they were not suicide bombers, but mostly car bombs and bombs beside cars."
They were not suicide bombings, but does this mean they were not carried out by AQ? I think it just means that AQ is low on suicide bombers. Or it means the bombings were strictly the work of Saddamists.
Al Jazeera has come a long way from 2004 and 2005, when they did not identify the sects of victims in Iraq. Like many biased Arabs, before 2006 Al Jazeera could not bring themselves to admit that their "brave and honorable resistance" would bomb places of worship and kill innocent Iraqis. AJ seemed to refuse to admit that Sunni extremists were terrorizing Iraq's Shia population. Even western media did not discuss the sectarian nature of the violence before 2006.
Some western media seemed themselves to be biased. After the Iraqi government closed down Al Jazeera's office in Baghdad in 2004, a Guardian journalist reported the "raid followed a decision by the prime minister, Ayad Allawi, to close the station temporarily in August because of its apparent failure to support the US occupation." Really? Is that why they closed AJ's Baghdad office? So it had nothing to do with AJ's biased reporting and their praise of the "resistance" that was attacking Iraqi security forces and civilians? If Al Jazeera was that concerned about US occupation, why did they never criticize Qatar, where CENTCOM and Al Jazeera's headquarters are? Did Al Jazeera not know of CENTCOM's role in the US invasion(s) and occupation of Iraq? Or are the Arabs simply hypocrites? To be fair, Al Jazeera was funded by the Emir of Qatar, which explains their bias and lack of journalistic consistency. But the ordinary Arabs and the "intellectual" and "educated" Arabs did not discuss AJ's hypocrisy, which to me symbolizes the stupidity of these "intellectual" and "educated" Arabs. As'ad Abu Khara (Happiest Father of Shit) is a good example.
Over the years Al Jazeera has changed and today they appear to be more objective. They seemed to be influenced by western media and eventually they acknowledged the sectarian nature of the violence, especially after innocent Sunni Arabs in Baghdad were rounded up and murdered by Shia militias in 2006.
Although western media reported that Shia were being attacked in 2004 and 2005, they did not call it "sectarian" violence. In the eyes of the media, it was not "sectarian" violence until Shia militias began killing innocent Sunni Arabs.
The one-sided sectarian violence continues in Iraq, and the mainstream media is actually reporting it this time; they are correctly calling it "sectarian" violence. Arab and Arab American bloggers, meanwhile, continue their KABOBfest and they continue to praise the "resistance" and condemn the "puppet" government of Iraq.
PS: The Washington Post also called it sectarian violence!
"The Shiite festival, commemorating the death of Imam Hussein in 680 AD, has been marred over the past six years by sectarian violence."
PS: The Washington Post also called it sectarian violence!
"The Shiite festival, commemorating the death of Imam Hussein in 680 AD, has been marred over the past six years by sectarian violence."
4 comments :
It is one-sided Mojo, but Shia are not only being targeted. Christians in Mosul and elsewhere have been repeatedly targeted this month, including a blast outside one of the Mosul's oldest churches the other day.
True. But I meant the killing of innocents is being waged predominantly by one side.
You hold tens of thousands of prisoners, and have 1000 on death row just for this year.
It is amazing how you continue to play the victim, even as you engage in the worst evil ever seen.
This reminds me of the incident where a couple of prisoners in Guantanamo committed suicide, and then the administrators of the camp called it an act of aggression against them.
Or in a similar vein, one of the recent bombings against the collaborators in Baghdad was characterized as
aimed to undermine the security that the U.S. and Iraqis had "worked so hard to achieve."
OMG, they "worked so hard"!
I feel so sorry for them now.
After all that hard work at killing off the Sunnis, they face a setback. This is so sad!
Dear Iraqi Mojo,
We Iranians experienced three Qadisiyas in our history. The first one was when Omar ibn al-Khattab attacked Persia, and both he and his terrorist general Khalid ibn al Walid, forced Persians AGAINST their will and UNDER the sword, to convert to Islam. They used this as an excuse to pillage, vandalise, rape, sack, destroy and murder. Persians became Shia out of hatred for Omar, not love of Ali or Ahl ul Bayt. The second Qadisiya was the late Khomeini's arrival in Iran, and establishing a wilayat faqih government that any true Shia would recognise as heresy and innovation, and this has been rejected by the Hawza of Najaf which is older than the Hawza of Qom. Any Shia can choose his own marja3 taqleed, and there is no "wali faqih" in Shia Islam. Either way, Khomeini brought the terror of Islam to the Persian people again, this time by imposing an Islamic government on the Iranian people. Yes, every day is Ashura, and every place is Karbala...especially in Iran today under the terrorist Khamenei/Ahmadinejad regime and the "Shia paradise" they have created in Iran.
The third Qadisiya was Saddam's attack on Iran. Saddam allowed Khomeini to live under his wings in Iraq for fourteen years, and would not return him to the late Shah to be punished. THEN he attacks Iran because it is being ruled by a terrorist (Khomeini) that he himself protected for 14 years.
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