An endless cycle of carnage, fueled by hatreds older than a millennium, and protected from scrutiny by modern-day political correctness. “22 killed in Iraq, most attending religious ritual,” by Sinan Salaheddin for the Associated Press, November 14 (thanks to Kenneth):
BAGHDAD “” Attacks across Iraq targeting security forces and those marking a major Shiite commemoration killed 21 people Wednesday while gunmen in the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah assassinated the city’s mayor as he was supervising a clean-up project.
The deadliest among Wednesday’s attacks was the one targeting a group of Shiites marking Ashoura in the eastern city of Baqouba, a former al-Qaida stronghold, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. That attack killed eight people, including two children, and wounded 35, a police officer said.
Shiites are marking Ashoura, the remembrance commemorating the death of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at the Battle of Karbala in present-day Iraq in the 7th century. The commemoration draws hundreds of thousands of Shiites to mourning ceremonies. Sunni extremists also target those marking Ashoura, as they consider Shiites to be heretics.
Also on Wednesday, a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden car into a police checkpoint outside the northern city of Tikrit, killing five police officers and three civilians, another police officer said.
The bombing in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, also wounded 18 people, the officer said.
Militants detonated bombs near police officers’ homes in the town of Karmah, west of the Iraqi capital, killing four people and wounding 24, police said.
And in the nearby city of Fallujah, 40 miles from Baghdad, gunmen on foot shot and killed the mayor, Adnan Hussein, as he was supervising cleaning teams in one of the neighborhoods, a police officer said. Two of his guards were wounded in the attack.
In Baghdad’s western suburb of Abu Ghraib, a bomb targeting a police patrol killed one officer and wounded seven, police said….