
The ignominy of a failed suicide attack
Should make all would-be martyrs looking for glory and paradisial bliss think twice. More on this story. “Iraq says mosque attacker close to Qaeda boss,” from AFP, May 2:
KIRKUK, Iraq (AFP) “” A would-be suicide bomber who tried to blow himself up near a mosque in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk has been identified as a Syrian close to the head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, police said on Saturday.
Ammar Afif Hamada was arrested after opening fire on guards at the gate to the Shiite Al-Zahra mosque in the tense ethnically-mixed city on Friday, Kirkuk police major general Torhan Yussef said.
“Ethnically”? Well, if being “Muslim” is a race, the way the media often portrays it, apparently Sunnism and Shiasm are now “ethnicities.”
He said Hamada is from Syria and is close to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who was apprehended by Iraqi police last week and is believed to be the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
“The terrorist confessed that he arrived in Kirkuk with a group about three days ago,” he said, adding that police were hunting for the other insurgents.
Police stopped Hamada as he entered a packed prayer service at the mosque on Friday. He began shooting, injuring a guard and a policeman, before being wrestled to the ground.
Pictures show Hamada bleeding from a head wound with dynamite-like explosives wrapped around his body. Police said he was wearing 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of explosives.
“He was trained in Homs, Syria and had at one time been arrested by the Syrian authorities,” Yussef said.
Television images showed Hamada’s head been repeatedly slammed to the ground by a hefty man in plain clothes.
“He confessed all night before he entered surgery. He had brain haemorrhaging from the blows received when citizens attacked him,” Yussef said, adding that ordinary people had helped to subdue the bomber.
Hamada arrived in Iraq more than two years ago and based himself out of Baghdad and the mainly Sunni Arab province of Diyala, which routinely sees suicide and bombing attacks, Yussef said.
He helped to issue religious and work decrees on behalf of Al-Qaeda as well as operating Internet sites, he added.