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Tue, 06 Mar 2007 21:59:00 150 Pilgrims Killed while Travelling to Karbala
Insurgents killed 150 pilgrims heading for the Iraqi city of Karbala yesterday, including 115 when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in one of the deadliest attacks of the four-year war. The pilgrims were traveling to commemorate the Arba'een proceedings in the city. Two suicide bombers strapped with explosives detonated themselves almost simultaneously in a busy street lined with tents in the city of Hilla, south of Baghdad, killing 115 people, local hospital officials said.
Similar arracks also marred the day of Ashura last month when the pilgrims were en route to the Kadhimiya district of Baghdad to attend Ashura events marking the 7th century martyrdom of the Imam Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed's grandson.
Muslim organizations including the Al-Khoei Foundation have condemned the violence and have urged Muslims to keep their ranks clear of any division.
A recently released statement from the office of Ayatollah Sistani, on the Anniversary of the desecration of Askariyyain shrine in Samarra, urged Muslims to "... observe the highest levels of self restraint and not to embark on saying or doing anything that may cause harm to the citizens of our Sunni brothers who are innocent of this appalling crime and who reject it completely."
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From: Ali Naqvi
Subject: Saudi
Comment: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 10:59:50 - Please read the following recent article:
KILLING MUSLIMS
THE SAUDIS STRIKE AGAIN
By RALPH PETERS
March 8, 2007 -- IMAGINE the reaction if Western agents slaughtered a hundred Sunni pilgrims on their way to Mecca. The outrage would spark incendiary rhetoric, riots and revenge killings from Peshawar to Paris.
But when Sunni suicide bombers murdered 118 Shia pilgrims (and wounded almost 200 more) on Tuesday, Sunnis around the globe looked away: Shias only count as Muslims when America can be blamed for their suffering.
Many of those Shia victims of religious totalitarianism were traveling on foot to Karbala to honor Mohammed's grandson Hussein - who was butchered by the founders of Sunni Islam, to whom power was worth more than the Prophet's family.
The hatred goes deep.
The Sunni Arab campaign against Shias isn't just a struggle for political advantage: It reflects an impulse to genocide. And it makes a grim joke of claims of Muslim unity.
The Tuesday atrocities, followed by smaller-scale attacks on more pilgrims yesterday, were meant to be as outrageous as possible. They not only underscored the hatred Sunni extremists feel toward all Shias, but had the immediate goal of provoking Muqtada al-Sadr's Shia militia to retaliate.
The Sunni insurgents and their foreign-terrorist allies are worried. The recent effort by American and Iraqi forces to pacify Baghdad has shown early signs of success. Wary of tangling with our troops again, Sadr's Mahdi Army has been laying low, while the Sunni extremists have taken heavy losses.
The Sunnis want the Shias back in the fight.
Why? Because they want to disrupt the Baghdad security plan. Because they want to deepen the reawakened hatred between Iraq's religious communities. And because they yearn for a regional conflict that would "put Shias back in their place."
So they slaughtered more than a hundred pilgrims - men, women and children; young and old - in Allah's name.
Where was the outcry?
Human-rights groups were too busy applauding European requests for the extradition of CIA operatives (the real enemies of Western civilization, of course). Since this butchery wasn't the fault of Americans or Brits, the Europeans themselves took no interest.
American leftists, who raved that Abu Ghraib was another Auschwitz, didn't offer a single word of pity for the Muslim victims of Muslims.
All to be expected.
But shouldn't Muslims have denounced the attacks on the pilgrims? Shouldn't such an atrocity have sparked Arab anger that transcended Islam's internal divide? After all, those murdered Shias were fellow Arabs, not Persians.
Where were the public statements of sympathy by government ministers and mullahs? Where was the noble Arab media? Where are the outraged demonstrations?
Not only is Islamic unity a sham, the Middle East's hypocrisy stinks like a shallow grave. Sunnis regard Shias as Untermenschen. No Sunni government wants to see Shias receive a fair deal - in Iraq or anywhere else.
In the short term, the question is whether Shias will take the bait and retaliate against Sunni Arab civilians in Iraq. The Baghdad government is doing its best to calm the furious Shia community. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.
But the greater, long-term danger is one this column has highlighted before: The administration's rush back into the arms of the Saudis and other America-hating Sunni Arab governments is a colossal strategic mistake.
The moral issues are bad enough: To the Saudi royal family, dead Shias aren't tragedies - they're trophies. One almost expects those bloated, bigoted princes to organize Shia-hunting safaris the way they slaughter endangered species when vacationing in impoverished African countries (been there, seen that).
The strategic catastrophe that would result from a return to our wretched mistakes of the 20th century would cost us dearly. When picking
From: Ali Naqvi
Subject: And More Would Die Unless......
Comment: Wed, 07 Mar 2007 11:53:55 - Shia deaths are not a result of sectarian violence. It is one sided killing. It is a direct result of Jordan, Egyptian and Saudi assistance and support to these suicidal groups. When will we realize that our soldiers and Iraqi Shias are being killed by the Sunni extremists backed by the triumvirate of these so called moderate states? The problem is that there is no intellectual bench strength among Shias to speak out against these atrocities. Who would do this? Why isn’t Khoei Center investing resources to transcend Al-Huda into a world class Shia media platform? I urge every reader to make a request to Khoei center to undertake such a project. I hate it when Shia genocide is termed as sectarian violence. It’s genocide! One 9/11 – i.e 3,500 deaths – shook the world because the world understood what had happened. And in this case 3000 Shias die every month but no one cares because we don’t have a media platform that can create the required awareness. It is termed as sectarian violence or civil war. Western media and Sunni dominated media such as Al-Jazeera cannot represent Shia interests because they don’t understand Shiaism. Al Khoei needs to invest in this area immediately – even if that means cutting down other projects.
From: Ali Naqvi
Subject: Accountability
Comment: Tue, 06 Mar 2007 22:27:00 - I request all those who read this to begin emailing and leaving messages here to ask Khoei center management to invest in an Al Jazeera type website. Given the fact that there are still some hopes for Shia prosperity in the next decade or so - the project will pay for itself. We need a website where anyone can go and find news on Shias and that can support Shia causes, and can help establish a badly needed identity for Shias. Every day without such access to press means another day of opportunity lost. This is the time. If we can't do this now - we will never do it.
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