A survivor asked the key question after a female suicide bomber in Iraq blew herself up killing 40 women and children in Karbala, Iraq for a religious observance:
"What kind of belief system do these people have? Are they monsters?" a man shouted as he held his dazed and wounded son, wrapped in a red and yellow.
What belief system encourages committing suicide to kill others?
Female suicide bomber kills 40 in IraqBy ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
February 13, 2009
BAGHDAD - A female suicide bomber struck a tent filled with women and children resting during a pilgrimage south of Baghdad on Friday, killing 40 people and wounding about 80 in the deadliest of three straight days of attacks against Shiite worshippers.The grisly assault, which also appeared to be the deadliest in Iraq this year, demonstrates the determination of some extremists to re-ignite sectarian warfare. It also underscores how fragile security remains here, even as the U.S. turns over more responsibility to the Iraqis.
Witnesses said many of the injured were hurt in a stampede as terrified survivors -- most of them poor Shiites exhausted after days of walking -- scrambled away from the tent in terror.
They left behind piles of clothing, small rugs and toddlers' strollers, Associated Press Television News video showed. A dismembered leg believed to have been the bomber's lay wrapped in an abaya in a cardboard box.
"It was a horrific scene with dead and screaming injured people on the ground," said Sadiya Kadom, 40, a Baghdad resident who was near the tent when the blast occurred.
