“Fraternal blood tragically bathes the Iraqi territory; fraternal blood is shed with violence that severs fundamental ties and bonds, to the point of violating the sacred character of places of worship,” the Vatican’s semiofficial newspaper said Monday.
The attack took place near a Shiite mosque in the town of Musayyib, south of Baghdad.
Thus, added the newspaper, “has been tragically manifested the murderous homicide of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, who tries to make deeper the furrow that separates Shiites and Sunnis.”
“It is a murderous homicide that strikes Iraq’s path to democracy: a path that increasingly is stained by blood, mourning and grief,” the newspaper said.
“Bathed ever more in tears is the face of a nation that, after years of merciless violence and through a nameless war, seeks with difficulty a present and future of serenity and peace,” it concluded.
Today, Mijbil Issa, a Sunni Arab appointed to a committee to draft Iraq’s Constitution was assassinated in a drive-by shooting, in the Karradah area of Baghdad, an Iraqi official said.
