Earlier today ISIS set off bombs targeting young families and the elderly. One bomb went off in a Baghdad ice cream parlor where children and their parents were enjoying desserts; the other exploded outside a Baghdad office where retirees were collecting their pensions. In all, 22 children, men, and women were killed, and 85 were wounded.
Like last week’s bombings at a pop concert in England and on the road to a monastery in Egypt, these attacks in Iraq were senseless. Aimed as they were against children and the elderly, they revealed the terrorists’ utter depravity. There is no religious or otherwise moral justification for this killing. Indeed, coming as they did in the early days of Ramadan, they reflect something else: a complete contempt for Islam and for innocent Muslims alongside Christians and people of all faiths.
The National Council of Churches USA mourns the victims. We pray for the comfort of the wounded and those who lost loved ones. We repeat what we said last week: murder is murder, and evil is evil.