Is this the beginning of a civil war in the the midst of an occupation?
Up to 20 people, including a top Shi'ite leader, were killed in a car bomb attack outside the main mosque in the Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Najaf just after prayers on Friday, officials in a top Shi'ite group said.
On NPR this morning (I can't resist listening, it's like rubbernecking at a traffic accident), a reporter there said Americans, Jews, and even Wahabbis were already being blamed for the blast. Yea, yea, yea. In the absence of any evidence yet, I think it is most likely a Sunni attack, though if I may speculate in a conspiratorial manner, perhaps it wasn't meant to go off there at all. Perhaps the soon-to-be-martyr was getting his last set of prayers in and something terribly, terribly wrong (at least from his perspective) went wrong.
And before anybody complains about my use of language above, we are occupying Iraq. We did liberate Iraq, but we now must occupy, secure and pacify them until a government can be established. This is a good thing.
I heard that all this is are the various religious groups fighting over who controls the tourism money. Apparently this area attracks religious tourists to shrines or something. Anyhow, Saddamned used to skim all the money, now it's up for grabs. Typical, isn't it?
Do you think the blast might put a dent in those tourism numbers???
Posted by: N. at 04:35 PM