Bakery jihad. Remember, Islamic law forbids the killing of innocent people, but innocence is in the eye of the beholder. From AP, with thanks to Twostellas:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – A car bomb exploded outside a Shiite mosque northeast of Baghdad on Friday, killing 13 and injuring more than 40, a police official and witnesses said, while masked men sprayed gunfire into a crowd at a bakery in a mostly Shiite neighborhood in the capital, killing 11 people, police said.
The violence came as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made a surprise visit and said that Iraqis, not Americans, must defeat the country’s insurgency.
The car bomb in Balad Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, took place as services at the mosque ended, a witness said. Iraqi National Guard troops were among the dead and wounded, police Col. Tahseen Mohammed said.
Mohammed said local residents reported that a pickup truck loaded with vegetables and parked in front of the mosque looked suspicious. When the Iraqi troops approached the truck, it exploded, he said.
The bakery attack in the New Baghdad area occurred after gunmen in several cars blocked the street in front of the shop with their vehicles and entered the shop. They fired on the workers, killing 11 people, an Iraqi police investigator said.
Although the motive was unclear, the attack is the latest in a series of violent incidents that have occurred since the Jan. 30 national elections, raising questions whether the landmark balloting will lead quickly to stability in this fractured country.