From the Timesonline:
At least 52 people were killed and dozens injured when suicide bombers blew themselves up inside two mosques in eastern Iraq during Friday prayers.Witnesses described how the men walked into the Shia mosques in the town of Khanaqin, on the border with Iran, and detonated explosive belts. The buildings, packed with worshippers on the Muslim holy day, were destroyed.
The explosions came around two hours after a twin vehicle bomb attack on the Hamra, a hotel used by foreign journalists in central Baghdad. At least eight people were killed, including a woman and two children, and 40 more were hurt.
The blasts in the Jadriyah district of the capital were close to a government building at the centre of a new torture scandal, although this is not believed to have been the target.
The first blast - captured on surveillance video - knocked down the walls protecting the rear of the hotel at about 8.20am (0520GMT). A second, bigger explosion followed a minute later as a water truck attempted to drive through the breach but was blocked by the crater and rubble.
The blasts reverberated through the city centre, sending a mushroom cloud hundreds of feet into the air. A third vehicle packed with explosives was found near to another hotel less than a mile away. It was detonated in a controlled expolsion.
Several residential buildings near to the Hamra collapsed from the twin blasts, which gouged a large crater in the road outside. Water from the second vehicle flooded the street.
Firefighters joined neighbours to dig through the debris and under toppled blast barriers to pull victims from the rubble.
The deputy interior minister, Major General Hussein Kamal said the heavily fortified hotel appeared to be the target, with the first bomb designed to breach blast walls and the second to cause devastation...
At some point these enablers will run out of explode dopes for Allah.
As the war heats up, it would be well to take out both.
Ah such a peacefull religion.
Is it possible that George Galloway could be asked for comment on this incident. Only commonsense and good manners restrain me from making the most of this opportunity to condemn in the most vitriolic syntax this deluded megalomaniac a latterday Lord Haw-Haw.
If the Americans leave, the enraged Sunnis will believe that they can now work their will, and will continue to blow up Shi'a mosques. And the Shi'a, now with some training, and with the Badr and other militias, will no longer have to abide by all those rules the Americans not only impose on themselves, but dare to impose on the Shi'a (see the contretemps over the Badr-Brigade-run prison). All kinds of things are likely to happen, none of them the fault of the Americans, none of them caused by the Americans this year, last year, in 2003, in 1968, or 1933, or ever -- the fault line runs straight back to 661 A.D.
So why are the Americans there? How do they propose to create an "Iraqi" force when each passing day shows that only the most complete despot (Saddam Hussein himelf) willing to murder out of both premeditation and whim, could conceivably hold Iraq together? Why this touching faith in the ballot-box when the evidence is there that only a few -- a most unrepresentative few (Chalabi was 11 years old when he left Iraq -- how representative of anything is Chalabi?), all of whom are Kurds or Shi'a exiles who spent 20, 30, or in Chalabi's case 46 years, abroad -- consider it something other than an instrument, like other insturments, to obtain power and smite their enemies through whatever is obtained through the instruments made available by the state?
Why are we there, when if we leave, they will go at it? Why are we there when the two main fissures within Islam will be on display, cleanly and clearly, for all -- Muslims and Infidels alike -- in Iraq?
Why?
I am waiting for Israel's foreign minister, Shalom, to call upon the U.S. to "excercise restraint" when dealing with Iraqi insurgents, while acknowledging that the U.S. has the right to defend itself.
Hugh it might be too much of a pie in the sky reason of why American forces are in Iraq... but we all know that democracy will destroy islam. from what l hear of some of US soldiers and information coming from Iraq, only three provinces (states) are doing much of the suicide bombings..we hear only the bad news on the liberal media. l know there are many people in Iraq who do want democracy particualarly the Kurds, who are not really Arabs, and no love lost with them. But if there can be a credible government put in place, takes time.. Japan did not overcome its history overnight. US pounded the hell out of Japan for several years. and the media did not do a countdown on US deaths etc, and negative news, which only feeds the insurgents. l have to believe there are many good people in Iraq who want to overthrow the muslime islamofacists. again l beleive the insurgents are acting their most deadly killing knowing if Democracy takes hold in the MidEast, Isalm in its true form will die out! We can then export some liberals to further extingush any uprising after its destruction!
Sir Cumference:
Judging from Galloway's latest pronouncements on Syrian TV (courtesy of memri.org) I'd say he's cut from the same cloth as Saddam's former Minister of Information -- the one who declared there were no American troops taking over Bagdad's airport. Things are getting tough for George. He's running out of Arab despots he can suck up to, isn't he?
The Religion Of Peace And Tolerance strikes again.
"but we all know that democracy will destroy islam."
-- from a posting above
I don't know that. Democracy is a poor fit with Islam, Islam does not favor legitimacy of a government or its laws being located in some Rouseeauvian General Will or will of the people. But that does not mean that Islamic governments cannot use the forms of democracy -- i.e. mere head-counting -- to obtain power. They almost did in Algeria, and were foiled only by a military coup. Khomeini was wildly power when he returned from France. And even today it is not clear that the Islamic Republic of Iran could be voted out of office -- there are always more primitives than the other kind.
Turkey has had nearly 80 years of "democracy" since that strong man Ataturk took over and constrained Islam. But where now is that "democracy"? It's there, and it helped to bring Erdogan to power (how many seats does his Justice and Development Party have in Parliament? Far more than 50%.), and with him the slow Return to Islam picked up its pace.
This business of "democracy" will somehow -- no one ever explains how -- limit or constrain or weaken Islam, is one more slogan used by the current naive administration. Naive, and lazy, and obstinate, and wasteful, and missing-opportunities, and infuriating. And the people who hate the Adminitration because of its foreign policy mostly hate it, alas, for all the wrong reasons.
What a nightmare.
But if, even if "for all the wrong reasons" we leave Iraq, "for all the right reasons" the so-called "Iraqis" are likely to behave as they would naturally behave where the Americans not present. And that, for Infidels, is a good thing.
In 25-250 years, Islam will still be Islam(maybe not we can hope), but I believe with all my heart that America will shine brighter than even before. What an experiment we are. The torch of democracy was passed off to us from the English and French . . . and it burns ever brighter. Idiots like Michael Moore believe we're in Iraq for the oil, instead of a misguided notion of bringing hope to a failed culture. While Iraq burns(and along with it W's numbers), one can still marvel at our intent. Only America would care about somebody else. Remember Somalia? Where was the oil? Just a dirty, poor, hate-filled, dope-filled country, and we send our boys there. In retrospect we should not have. Obviously. While the right and left duke it out at home, remember our noble values . . . sometimes naive . . . sometimes misguided, but always with the heart first. Oh, and AlJazerra will hardly cover the upcoming intra-islamic civil war in Iraq(when we leave), expect to frame it in the context of it is our fault. Remeber when that lovable Desmond Tutu said, "the west can go to hell." My sentiments exactly regarding the caliphate.