Silence over Daesh genocidal campaign against Shia Muslims in Iraq
SHAFAQNA – Daesh aka ISIL massacred over 40 people and wounded 58 more in a suicide bombing at a funeral in east Iraq on Monday. The attack took place in Muqdadiya, northeast of the capital city Baghdad, in a neighbourhood predominantly Shia … In their blind hatred of Shia Islam, a faith Wahhabism branded heretic on account it continues to hold true to an oath certain clerics would like to deny ever happen, so that they could go on and claim power over communities of men, when in fact their authority carries no religious legitimacy, Daesh militants have pursued Shia Muslims both in life and in death – hoping to disrupt even burial ceremonies.
Elsewhere in Baghdad another attack rocked a public place where 8 members of the security services were killed. The day before, 78 Iraqis were killed in twin suicide attack in another Shia majority neighbourhood … hundreds were wounded, and many still stand to lose their lives.
On this tragedy not a word was uttered … Iraqis’ pain and hardship have been ignored by world media as it does not speak to their selective sensibility.
From Feb. 28 to 29, at least 118 Iraqis were killed. When one factors in the additional ISIS attack on a Shia mosque in Baghdad on Feb. 25, in which 15 people were killed, at least 133 Iraqis have been massacred in the past few days.
And this does not even include the dozen more Iraqi soldiers who died in battles with Deash during the same time period.
In the horrific November 2015 Paris attacks, 130 people were killed. The world virtually stopped, as heads of state from across the globe condemned the killings, and as stories filled up the headlines of every leading publication.
On Iraq absolute silence!
According to the United Nations, 670 Iraqis, including 410 civilians, were killed in February. Another 1,050 civilians were injured. ISIS was responsible for most of the casualties, targeting places of worship, markets and even funerals, in what the U.N. calls “vicious” attacks.
In January, another 849 Iraqis were killed, and 1,450 were injured. “This conflict continues to exact a heavy toll on the population,” remarked Ján Kubiš, head of the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq.
Innocent civilians have been slained in Iraq, and yet the world can only cry Western death, on Western land.
Why is that? Does France deserves more tears than Iraq … is a man or a woman’s life worth tied to one’s ethnicity or faith?
Those are the questions the global community ought to ask if we ever hope to heal those wounds on which the likes of Daesh have fed on to rise a monster.
Since the 2003 US-led invasion — which the U.N. explicitly said was illegal — and subsequent occupation, Iraq has suffered extreme violence. Paris attacks have become regular occurrences. And yet, although they are equally tragic and horrific, they garner exponentially less attention.
In the midst of such horrors, intolerance and ignorant bigotry Shia Muslims have rallied around their faith like a moth to a flame, determined to hold on to their beliefs until they are no more. Unlike Wahhabism, Shia Islam needs no grand campaign of forced-conversion, it needs no propaganda and no army to spread its wings.
Anchored in those pillars of Islam Wahhabism has ignored and misunderstood in its arrogance, Shia Islam has retracted behind its faith, and the wisdom its Imams imparted to the world.
By Catherine Shakdam for Shafaqna
