What more can be expected from theocrats and religious fanatics that view democratic rule of law and balance of power as a threat to their spiritual supremacy?
In four separate areas around Baghdad, authorities found the bodies of 40 men shot dead, an interior ministry spokesman said Thursday.
In Baqubah, gunmen in several vehicles killed at least three dozen people in buses who were heading to a protest of the mosque bombing, said Gen. Amir Al-Jubouri, Diyala deputy police chief. The riders, Sunnis and Shiites, were stopped by the gunmen who set up their own checkpoint. Their bodies were found in a creek.
Also in Baqubah, a suicide bomber blew up himself amid a group of Iraqi army soldiers in a public market, killing 9 soldiers and two civilians and wounded 19 others, said Ali Al-Khayyam, a spokesmen for the JCC, the Joint Coordination Center.
In the same city, 20 miles north of Baghdad, a muezzin at a Sunni mosque was killed and two of his bodyguards were wounded Wednesday when four armed men attacked the mosque, eyewitnesses said. The four men, dressed in black and wearing masks, entered the mosque just when preachers were getting ready to hold the morning prayers, said Ali Kadhum, 32, who is one of the two bodyguards wounded in the attack. "When they first came in shooting, we hid in the preachers room," Kadhum said, "then they through hand grenades inside the room."
In Samarra, armed men kidnapped and killed a reporter of al-Arabiya, a Dubai-based news channel, along with two of her crew. Atwar Bahjat, 26, was shot dead in northern Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, the channel reported.
All told, Interior Ministry officials said more than 100 people were killed.
And all told, the Muslim Scholars Association in Iraq said 168 Sunni mosques were attacked in the last 24 hours.
[Sectarian Violence Surges After Shrine Bombing - Washington Post - 02-23-06]
More theocratic thuggery...
Christian youths burned the corpses of Muslims on Thursday on the streets of Onitsha in southeastern Nigeria, the city worst hit by religious riots that have killed at least 146 people across the country in five days.
Christian mobs, seeking revenge for the killings of Christians in the north, attacked Muslims with machetes, set fire to them, destroyed their houses and torched mosques in two days of violence in Onitsha, where 93 people died.
"We are very happy that this thing is happening so that the north will learn their lesson," said Anthony Umai, a motorcycle taxi rider, standing close to where Christian youths had piled up the corpses of 10 Muslims and were burning them.
[Bodies burned in open after Nigeria riots kill 146 - Reuters - 02-23-06]
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