Iraqi Suicide Bombs

Nearly 200 were killed and twice that number injured when suicide bombs and mortar shells struck Baghdad and Karbala. You knew that already. According to the Arab News, it could have been much bloodier.

The toll could have been higher. A fourth suicide bomber was captured at Kazimiya after his explosives failed to detonate. Police in the southern city of Basra discovered two women strapped with explosives marching in an Ashoura procession, and other bombs were found near Shiite mosques in Basra and Najaf.

“The terrorists want sectarian violence because they believe that is the only way they can stop Iraq’s march toward the democracy that the terrorists fear,” Iraq’s top US administrator L. Paul Bremer said in a statement. “They will lose because the Iraqi people want and will have democracy, freedom and a sovereign Iraqi government.”

The closer Iraq comes to a provisional constitution, and then to elections, the more this kind of violence can be expected. The opposition to representative government is organized, passionate, and bold. They also have the easier job, in a way. They could send out fifty suicide bombers, forty-nine of which fail, and they will still have succeeded.

That is always the way with terrorists, though, and the required response in increased vigilance and commitment. As bloody as this bombing may have been, it is not a sign that the coalition has lost. It's simply a sign that we are still fighting, along with those Iraqis that believe in freedom and democracy, for the future of a country that up until a short time ago lived under the heel of a tyrant.

That may not make the blood and pain any easier to accept, but it does well to remind us of why the fight is so important.

Read the Arab News story.

Posted by zombyboy at March 2, 2004 08:43 PM | TrackBack