Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Can some Iraqi suicide bombings be prevented?

Another tragedy in Iraq:

A SUICIDE bomber blew himself up at a Shiite mosque during a funeral in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul yesterday, killing at least 46 people and wounding more than 100 in a fresh attack on the country’s newly-empowered majority. Witnesses said the victims had come from various sections of Iraq’s ethnically and religiously divided society and had been at the funeral to pay their respects. Police had put the toll at 30, but officials from the two main hospitals in Mosul, a city that has become a focus for US efforts to defeat Iraq’s insurgency, later said the number of dead had reached 46.
I have no idea whether the mosque had security precautions in place (guards at the door, for example, checking people for weapons), but I suspect it didn't. It seems to me that the Iraqis could do more to protect themselves from suicide bombers. For example, why do they always have endlessly long lines outside of police stations? These are so obviously targets, it would make sense to change the pattern of job interviews to lessen the targets. And shouldn't they be checking people who enter mosques? There seems to be a fatalism amongst the Iraqis that keeps them from taking more stringent measures to protect themselves.