When homicidal maniacs hijack a religion...

Well the news that has been come out of the Muslim world these last few days has been very disturbing. In December, I wrote a post about an assassination attempt on a Pakistani government minister who was attending prayers inside of a mosque. Scores of people died in that bomb attack, and these next examples are certainly no better. One happened in Iraq, the other in Afghanistan.

Yesterday in Iraq, two disabled women were strapped up with explosives and detonated by remote control in two Baghdad markets, killing almost 100 innocent people in what was perhaps the most brutal terrorist attack in over 9 months in the Iraqi capital. The obvious question we should all be asking is 'why', but we should also be wondering why the inhuman mass murderers behind the attack weren't willing to send one of their own "martyrdom seekers" into the crowd. Perhaps it is because they are simply running out of bad guys, or maybe its because they are too afraid, or it could be because they are desperate to find a way to destroy the amazing progress that has been made in Iraq in recent months. Just the same, those who continue to suggest that the Iraq conflict is nothing more than civil war are not only wrong, they are ignorant. To say that ordinary Iraqis or Muslims would committ such an evil act is insulting to the people of that country, their culture, and their religion.

In Afghanistan, an equally horrendous act was committed when a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up inside of a mosque in the southern city of Lashkar Gah on thursday, killing the deputy governor of Helmand Province and five others in what the provincial police chief described as "totally against our religion". It follows a pattern of similar attacks in the region, including the one in Pakistan that was mentioned earlier.

These barbaric attacks are only the latest in a series of events that have been happening around the world in regards to the war on terrorism. Just look at the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the Algiers bombings, and the siege of Mogadishu in Somalia in addition to the terrorist activities that continue in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some may deny it, but all of these events are connected to the broader war on terror in some way or another.