Handicapped bombers kill dozens in Iraq
Officials say 2 handicapped female suicide bombers struck pet markets
BAGHDAD - Remote-controlled explosives strapped to two mentally handicapped women detonated in a coordinated attack on pet bazaars Friday, police and Iraqi officials said, killing at least 73 people in the deadliest day since the U.S. sent 30,000 extra troops to the capital this spring.
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker said the bombings showed that a resilient al-Qaida has "found a different, deadly way" to try to destabilize Iraq.
"There is nothing they won't do if they think it will work in creating carnage and the political fallout that comes from that," Crocker told The Associated Press in an interview at the State Department.
Associated Press records, however, show that since the start of the war at least 151 people have been killed in at least 17 attacks or attempted attacks by female suicide bombers, including today's bombings.
Iraqi officials said the women apparently were mentally disabled and the explosives were detonated by remote control, indicating they may not having been willing attackers in what could be a new method by suspected Sunni insurgents to subvert stepped up security measures.
In the first attack, a woman detonated explosives hidden under her traditional black Islamic robe at about 10:20 a.m. in the central al-Ghazl market. The weekly bazaar has been bombed several times since the war started but recently had re-emerged as a popular place to shop and stroll as Baghdad security improved and a Friday ban on driving was lifted.
Four police and hospital officials said at least 46 people were killed and more than 100 wounded. Firefighters scooped up debris scattered among pools of blood, clothing and pigeon carcasses.
About 20 minutes later, a second female suicide bomber struck a bird market in a predominantly Shiite area in southeastern Baghdad. That blast killed as many as 27 people and wounded 67, according to police and hospital officials.
The attacks were the latest in a series of violent incidents that have been chipping away at Iraqi confidence in the permanence of recent security gains.
Women with Down syndrome selected
The chief Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, claimed the female bombers apparently had Down syndrome and the explosives were detonated by remote control. Bolstering that claim, local police said the woman in the first attack sold cream in the morning at the market and was known to locals as "the crazy lady."
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said about 70 people were killed in both attacks, which he said were committed by terrorists motivated by revenge and "to show that they are still able to stop the march of history and of our people toward reconciliation."
I was so angry and sad when I heard about this attack. It is horrible to know all these innocent people are dead, but now I also am left wondering if these two women knew what was going on!
Did they know they were going to die that day? Did they know they were going to kill scores of others? If they did know, did they comprehend the impact of their actions? Part of me thinks they did not know - why need a remotely detonating bomb if they wanted to do it themselves? If they didn't know, then shame on the people who set this up and carried this through! SHAME! And cowards they are!
May God help all the families through their grief, God help the innocents. This is truly sadening.
I'm not sure about al-Qaida though, it doesn't really seem their style. More likely some other insurgent faction IMHO. Either way they seem to have run out of suitably gullible wannabe 'martyrs' to carry out their dirty work.
The people to blaim for this can only be a small sunni millits or a large shia millits.
Shias attack the sunni neighborhoods very often, killing many sunni civilian and kidnapping many sunni imams from inside of their mosques and then executing them in the most barbaric ways.
When the sunnis witness this kind of behavior some of them want revenge.
Of those, most of them join a sunni insurgency group in order to hit back on the shias, these sunni insurgency groups only kill armed men.
Some sunnis on the other hand join some small sunni millits, a few of these sunni millits kill armed and unarmed men, woman and children in order to get the revenge that they seek. The members of these sunni millits are often those who lost a family member to a shia attack.
Then you have inside the shia community and neighborhood 2 big shia groups fighting each other, this is not so much religious fighting but more political and tribal fighting between shia tribes.
My point is, how on earth can people blaim al-Qaida for this when it is much more likely to have bin done by a shia or sunni group.
And again: Why would Bin Laden attack muslims in Iraq when he have clearly stated in every single one of his videos that this shia-sunni fighting is wrong, and that sunni's and shia's should instead unite and fight against america and their allies.
Its completely ridiculous to blaim al-Qaida for this attack, but then again; america itself is quite ridiculous if you ask me.
The people to blaim for this can only be a small sunni millits or a large shia millits.
Shias attack the sunni neighborhoods very often, killing many sunni civilian and kidnapping many sunni imams from inside of their mosques and then executing them in the most barbaric ways.
When the sunnis witness this kind of behavior some of them want revenge.
Of those, most of them join a sunni insurgency group in order to hit back on the shias, these sunni insurgency groups only kill armed men.
Some sunnis on the other hand join some small sunni millits, a few of these sunni millits kill armed and unarmed men, woman and children in order to get the revenge that they seek. The members of these sunni millits are often those who lost a family member to a shia attack.
Then you have inside the shia community and neighborhood 2 big shia groups fighting each other, this is not so much religious fighting but more political and tribal fighting between shia tribes.
My point is, how on earth can people blaim al-Qaida for this when it is much more likely to have bin done by a shia or sunni group.
And again: Why would Bin Laden attack muslims in Iraq when he have clearly stated in every single one of his videos that this shia-sunni fighting is wrong, and that sunni's and shia's should instead unite and fight against america and their allies.
Its completely ridiculous to blaim al-Qaida for this attack, but then again; america itself is quite ridiculous if you ask me.
America Where everything is blaimed on al-Qaida
oh boy, you also blame everything on USA and even the whole west, so nothing so different
Im Always Right,Its Like,When Im Right,Im Right,And When Im Wrong,I Could've Been Right,So Im Still Right,'Cause I Could've Been Wrong!
Every single problem in the middle east is there because of the west and america.
Not really. There are plenty of problems in the Middle East that go back way before the USA started getting involved in world affairs. Sunni-Shia infighting is nothing to do with the USA. Intra-Islamic wars have been happening since the time of Abu Bakr (ra). The main external factors to damage the middle east were the Mongol Hordes in the medieval age and the British/French after the defeat of the Ottomans. America is the new kid on the block.
The whole shia-sunni conflict is something that became serious after the western imperialism, there were shias and sunnis before but they didnt kill each other as much as they do now after the imperialism.
The biggest, most serious and dangerous conflicts of the middle east are all caused by the west and especially america.
"If this is true, so i guess that The Middle east must be very weak that just one country(no matter how strong) can mess it up."
A single country can mess it up? What do you mean by "one" country?
There is nothing new here. Previous homicide bombers who consciously killed innocents while blowing themselves to bits were also possessed of brains not working too well.
This is brilliant. This way, the bombers won't lose their nerve...as they are unaware they are to be killed...plus one can get rid of those annoying mentally deficient types as one moves to the perfect <insert appropriate adjectiv here> state. Just give a few chocolates or something and point them in the right direction...et voila!
Brilliant! Its good for PR too!
The West should just give up. We are beaten. Is it five times a day then?
There is nothing new here. Previous homicide bombers who consciously killed innocents while blowing themselves to bits were also possessed of brains not working too well.
This is brilliant. This way, the bombers won't lose their nerve...as they are unaware they are to be killed...plus one can get rid of those annoying mentally deficient types as one moves to the perfect <insert appropriate adjectiv here> state. Just give a few chocolates or something and point them in the right direction...et voila!
Brilliant! Its good for PR too!
The West should just give up. We are beaten. Is it five times a day then?
yes 5 times a day, but you have to clean before everytime you pray, wash your hands, face, arms, feet, ears, nose, very easy, just like u do when u wake except now you also clean your feet too.
also be sure to then pay the zakat at the end of ramadan and eid for the poor, and dont forget to fast as well! And when you have the chance and time, go perform the Hajj..............
These kind of attacks are not directed to the west! The attacks directed to the west are the attacks executed by al-Qaida and the muslim insurgents.
What 'muslim insurgents'? Which organisation is supposed to be happy-happy with every Shia and Sunni group and only attacks US and other Western targets? It's a total fantasy... the 'muslim insurgents' and those behind these atrocities are the same people.
Ron Paul Quotes "War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war expenditures."
Ron Paul Quotes "Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms."
Ron Paul Quotes "The obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people."
Ron Paul Quotes "It is not our job to remove Saddam Hussein - that is the job of the Iraqi people. It is not our job to remove the Taliban - that is the business of the Afghan people. It is not our job to insist that the next government in Afghanistan include women, no matter how good an idea it is. If this really is an issue, why don't we insist that our friends in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait do the same thing, as well as impose our will on them? Talk about hypocrisy! The mere thought that we fight wars for affirmative action in a country 6,000 miles from home, with no cultural similarities, should insult us all. Of course it does distract us from the issue of an oil pipeline through northern Afghanistan. We need to keep our eye on the target and not be so easily distracted." - Rep. Ron Paul's Heroic House of Representatives Address On The 'War On Terrorism', Dec. 1st, 2001
Our responsibility is to spread democracy here, make sure that we have it. This is a philosophic and foreign policy problem, because what the president was saying was just a continuation of Woodrow Wilson's "making the world safe for democracy." There's nothing wrong with spreading our values around the world, but it is wrong to spread it by force. We should spread it by setting an example and going and doing a good job here. Threatening Pakistan and threatening Iran makes no sense whatsoever. I supported going after Al Qaida into Afghanistan--but, lo & behold, the neocons took over. They forgot about Bin Laden. And what they did, they went into nation-building, not only in Afghanistan, they went unjustifiably over into Iraq. And that's why we're in this mess today.
I would like to change Washington, and we could by cutting three programs, such as the Department of Education-- Ronald Reagan used to talk about that--Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security is the biggest bureaucracy we ever had. And besides, what we can do is we can have a stronger national defense by changing our foreign policy.
You can't discuss energy without discussing our foreign policy. Why do we go to the Middle East? You know that oil is very important about the Middle East and why we're there. Why did our government help overthrow Mossadeq in 1953? It had to do with oil. So our foreign policy is designed to protect our oil interests. The profits--that's not the problem. It's the problem that we succumb to the temptation to protect oil interests by literally going out and fighting wars over oil. Source: 2007 GOP debate at Saint Anselm College Jun 3, 2007
What 'muslim insurgents'? Which organisation is supposed to be happy-happy with every Shia and Sunni group and only attacks US and other Western targets? It's a total fantasy... the 'muslim insurgents' and those behind these atrocities are the same people.
format_quote Originally Posted by Trumble
What 'muslim insurgents'? Which organisation is supposed to be happy-happy with every Shia and Sunni group and only attacks US and other Western targets? It's a total fantasy... the 'muslim insurgents' and those behind these atrocities are the same people.
There are hundreds of groups and organisations spread over Iraq, 90% of those only attack armed men, al-Qaida is one in the crowd of the 90%.
If you want the names of the sunni organisations that only attack armed men, then just ask.
The iraqi insurgents and al-Qaida insurgents in Iraq, attack american and western soldiers and buildings, they also attack iraqi shia regime soldiers and iraqi government buildings.
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