Doesn't get much lower than this
One wonders what kind of perverse ideology could lead to this? Can there be any "negotiations" or "peace brokering" in such a culture?
March 20
Insurgents in Iraq detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle with two children in the back seat after US soldiers let it through a Baghdad checkpoint over the weekend, a senior US military official said Tuesday.
The vehicle was stopped at the checkpoint but was allowed through when soldiers saw the children in the back, said Major General Michael Barbero of the Pentagon's Joint Staff.
"Children in the back seat lowered suspicion. We let it move through. They parked the vehicle, and the adults ran out and detonated it with the children in the back," Barbero said.
The general said it was the first time he had seen a report of insurgents using children in suicide bombings. But he said Al-Qaeda in Iraq is changing tactics in response to the tighter controls around the city.
A US defense official said the incident occurred on Sunday in Baghdad's Adhamiyah district, a mixed neighborhood adjacent to Sadr City, which is predominantly Shiite.
After going through the checkpoint, the vehicle parked next to a market across the street from a school, said the official, who asked not to be identified.
"And the two adults were seen to get out of the vehicle, and run from the vehicle, and then followed by the detonation of the vehicle," the official said.
"It killed the two children inside as well as three other civilians in the vicinity. So, a total of five killed, seven injured," the official said.
Officials here said they did not know who the children were or their relationship to the two adults who fled the scene. They had no information about their ages or genders.
"The brutality and the ruthlessness of this enemy hasn't changed," said Barbero, deputy director of regional operations of the Joint Staff. "They are just interested in slaughtering Iraqi civilians, to be very honest."
March 20
Insurgents in Iraq detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle with two children in the back seat after US soldiers let it through a Baghdad checkpoint over the weekend, a senior US military official said Tuesday.
The vehicle was stopped at the checkpoint but was allowed through when soldiers saw the children in the back, said Major General Michael Barbero of the Pentagon's Joint Staff.
"Children in the back seat lowered suspicion. We let it move through. They parked the vehicle, and the adults ran out and detonated it with the children in the back," Barbero said.
The general said it was the first time he had seen a report of insurgents using children in suicide bombings. But he said Al-Qaeda in Iraq is changing tactics in response to the tighter controls around the city.
A US defense official said the incident occurred on Sunday in Baghdad's Adhamiyah district, a mixed neighborhood adjacent to Sadr City, which is predominantly Shiite.
After going through the checkpoint, the vehicle parked next to a market across the street from a school, said the official, who asked not to be identified.
"And the two adults were seen to get out of the vehicle, and run from the vehicle, and then followed by the detonation of the vehicle," the official said.
"It killed the two children inside as well as three other civilians in the vicinity. So, a total of five killed, seven injured," the official said.
Officials here said they did not know who the children were or their relationship to the two adults who fled the scene. They had no information about their ages or genders.
"The brutality and the ruthlessness of this enemy hasn't changed," said Barbero, deputy director of regional operations of the Joint Staff. "They are just interested in slaughtering Iraqi civilians, to be very honest."
posted by unca | 1:51 PM
4 Comments:
it defies understanding; it's horrible beyond words.
This is just horrible.
It reminds me of what Golda Meir said. (I looked up the exact quote) “We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us."
I can’t help feeling the same amount of hatred is going on now in the Middle East.
It's all morally equivalent, you know that.
Here’s something that's maybe even lower:
American soldiers discovered a girls school being built north of Baghdad had become an explosives-rigged “death trap,” the U.S. military said Thursday.
The plot at the Huda Girls’ school in Tarmiya was a “sophisticated and premeditated attempt to inflict massive casualties on our most innocent victims,” military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said.
The military suspects the plot was the work of al Qaeda, because of its nature and sophistication, Caldwell said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
The plot was uncovered Saturday, when troopers in the Salaheddin province found detonating wire across the street from the school. They picked up the wire and followed its trail, which led to the school. Once inside, they found an explosive-filled propane tank buried beneath the floor. There were artillery shells built into the ceiling and floor, and another propane tank was found, the military said.
The wire was concealed with mortar and concrete, and the propane tanks had been covered with brick and hidden underneath the floor, according to a military statement. Soldiers were able to clear the building.
“It was truly just an incredibly ugly, dirty kind of vicious killing that would have gone on here,” Caldwell said.
Iraqi contractors were responsible for building the school, which was intended to bring in hundreds of girls.
“Given the care and work put into emplacing this IED, it is likely it had been planned for a long time” and it is thought that “the IED was not intended to be set off until the building was occupied,” the military said.
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