A Slap In The Face

That's what it really boils down to: a slap in the face of the Shiites in Iraq.  They will not, I assume, simply turn the other cheek.

The attack on the Askariya Shrine

Iraq’s civil war had been reaching a boiling point for quite a while, but last year’s attack on the Askariya Shrine was, as Ezra noted, widely perceived as “the moment the country took its decisive turn towards civil war.” Today, what’s left of the shrine was hit again. Saboteurs blew up the two minarets of a revered [...]

UPDATE: As I speculated, the other cheek is not being turned..

Retribution attacks begin.

Four Sunni mosques have been attacked today in apparent retribution for yesterday’s bombing of the Golden Dome Shiite shrine in Samarra, “where a 2006 bombing unleashed a wave of sectarian violence that gripped Iraq for over a year.” UPDATE: Washington Post’s Dan Froomkin made an important point during a reader chat today: sectarian violence in Iraq [...]

Tags: Iraq, Civil War, Askariya Shrine, Shiite