RADIO ZERO

Selling Pets Is Forbidden. So Blowing Up Women with Downs Syndrome In A Crowded Pet Market Is OK.

Baghdad’s fragile peace was shattered yesterday when explosives strapped to two women with Down’s syndrome were detonated by remote control in crowded pet markets, killing at least 91 people in the worst attacks that the capital had experienced for almost a year.

Sunni fundamentalists consider the selling of pets to be haram — forbidden on religious grounds.

Though the use of women in warfare violates religious taboos, Al-Qaeda has increasingly used women as suicide bombers because they can conceal explosives beneath their black robes and usually escape the rigorous body searches to which men are subjected.

The (London) Times' Martin Fletcher reports