Terrorists in Iraq hit a new low on Friday when two mentally handicapped women were used to carry explosives through a security check and were then blown apart, either by remote control or a timer set in the bombs.
The depravity of this crime is staggering.
It bears all the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda both in terms of its amorality and wicked cunning. However, the Americans and the Iraqi authorities cannot be as sure as they claimed to be, within hours of the blast in which more than 90 were slain and scores wounded, that the monstrous act was perpetrated by Al-Qaeda fanatics.
There are other evil forces at work in Iraq. It might even be that this crime was designed to draw attention to Bin Laden and his followers, while the guilty were pursuing their own agenda.
There is no doubt that these two poor women were used by the terrorists precisely because they were mentally handicapped. The police who let them pass without searching them knew the women and doubtless treated them kindly. The terrorists had clearly seen how the pair were never suspected and, therefore, hatched their plot to dupe the couple into carrying explosives. The women had child-like intelligence. Their use was little short of actually sending a bomb-laden child into a crowd. That would be the final frontier of depravity.
The US analysis of this crime included the thought that Al-Qaeda was running out of suicide bombers and so was turning to the mentally handicapped. This is hardly reasonable. From now on it can be expected that the authorities will be paying close attention to such people and yes, perhaps also to children. The human bomb campaign could not, therefore, be a substitute for the suicide terrorist.
Besides which, the Americans have also been talking recently about large numbers of brainwashed recruits to the ranks of the fanatics. Both claims cannot be right.
Washington is obviously eager to bolster its claim that the troop surge had indeed reduced violence. This heinous crime in Baghdad comes after a prolonged period of relative quiet in the capital. It undermines Bush’s claims about increased security. Indeed, those claims in themselves must have been a spur to the men of violence to pull out all stops and mount a large outrage. The propaganda value of such a strike has been magnified by Bush’s boasting.
The disgust all decent people feel over Friday’s blast will not deter the terrorists. They are beyond normal human feelings. But hopefully, Iraqis will unite in their refusal to be cowed by these thugs and redouble their efforts to root them out of their society. It must be hoped that Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki was stating a fact when he said that such attacks would only increase the Iraqi military’s persistence in restoring security to the violence-ravaged country.
