Foreign Policy Blogs

Terrorism for the Holidays?

I try not to make this blog too much about incidents of terrorism or about the violence that results from religious extremism, but it is such a tragedy to see the pictures coming out of Iraq today. We have become almost blind to the many suicide bombings there, but it is so devastating to think that people should die on a religious holiday – and particularly as they leave from prayers at a mosque. The attacks happened at the end of the holy month of Ramadan – the Shiites at the mosque were marking the holiday of Eid al-Fitr with prayers. The reports are that 16 people were killed near the mosques as they left morning prayers. In other areas of the country, the victims in other attacks were all Sunni. Last Sunday, at least another 32 people were killed.  At the heart of what has happened, however, it is a real tragedy to see suffering when people expect to be joyous for a religious holiday.

 

Author

Karin Esposito

Karin Esposito is blogging on religion and politics from her base in Central Asia. Currently, she is the Project Manager for the Tajikistan Dialogue Project in Dushanbe. The Project is run through the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies with the support of PDIV of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. The aim of the project is to establish practical mechanisms for co-existence and peaceful conflict resolution between Islamic and secular representatives in Tajikistan. After receiving a Juris Doctorate from Boston University School of Law in 2007, she worked in Tajikistan for the Bureau of Human Rights and later as a Visting Professor of Politics and Law at the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics, and Strategic Research (KIMEP). Ms. Esposito also holds a Master's in Contemporary Iranian Politics (2007) from the School of International Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Iran and a Master's in International Relations (2003) from the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (GIIDS) in Switzerland.

Areas of Focus:
Islam; Christianity; Secularism;

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