FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS PILGRIMS

IRAQ: 54 KILLED BY FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBER
JOINED SHIITE PILGRIMS MARCHING TO HOLY CITY

BAGHDAD (EFE) - A female suicide bomber detonated a vest rigged with explosives among a crowd of Shiite Muslim pilgrims Monday in northeast Baghdad, killing 54 people and wounding 109, the latest in a string of attacks that have unnerved the city as pivotal elections loom next month. For several years, sectarian violence has plagued the pilgrimage that marks the death of a revered Shi'ite figure. Iraqi authorities say the bomber joined the pilgrims as they walked through a Shi'ite neighborhood in the capital. The bomber hid the explosives under her voluminous black abaya, or cloak, and detonated them among pilgrims gathered at a hospitality tent in the neighborhood of Bab al Shams. The dead included five women employed to search female pilgrims for bombs, police said. The pilgrims were among hundreds of thousands walking to the shrine city of Karbala to mark Arbaeen, the end of a 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein, a 7th century figure revered by Shiites. The dead and wounded were among the hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites from Iraq, Iran and elsewhere in the region who make the journey to Karbala, 80 kilometers south of Baghdad, to mark the end of a religious mourning period.

Traditionally, residents set up hospitality tents to serve refreshments to the pilgrims. Such public displays of Shiite religiosity were banned during Saddam Hussein's rule. Since his fall from power in 2003, millions have been making the journey on foot to the Karbala shrine. Just as regularly, insurgents have attacked them along the way, and Monday's bombing echoed one a year earlier in which a suicide attacker killed 40 pilgrims, also at a hospitality tent. This suicide bombing attack was the fifth in Baghdad in just a week.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

There is an outbreak of conflagration of group clashes throughout the world. Nowhere you will find peace. I am worried to read in newspapers the news of bomb explosions and disturbances. A section of people have become so violent and barbarous that they do not hesitate in committing heinous crimes in assassinating innocent persons to fulfill their political ends. All humanitarian considerations have been relinquished. They are now seeking justifications in committing such great sins.

Śrīla Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Mahārāja :
“Strongest Spiritual Force on Earth”
Statements at a press conference, 12-29-2000, Mumbai.
Sree Chaitanya Gaudiya Math - http://www.sreecgmath.org