After Baghdad Bombing, Iraqi Officials Fear Islamophobic Backlash

Muslims have perpetrated 100% of the bombings in Baghdad since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Baghdad, May 11 – Following the deaths of more than 60 people this morning in an Islamic State car bomb attack in the Iraqi capital, local leaders voiced concern that the populace might begin to view Muslims as a group in a negative light, one such official told reporters.

A powerful car bomb detonated in an outdoor market in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood earlier today. Initial reports put the death toll at 63 and the number of injured at 85, but both figures are expected to rise over the course of the day. The Islamic State, which follows Sunni Islam, claimed responsibility for the attack, which targeted Shiite Muslims – prompting worry among Iraqi leaders the population of Baghdad and Iraq in general will now exhibit signs of Islamophobia.

“We have seen this pattern before, especially in Europe,” said Mustafa Massikr, an Imam at a Baghdad mosque. “The main concern when bombings and other attacks occur, perpetrated by Muslims, is how Muslims might be treated as automatically suspect in the eyes of the populace. I fear that pattern is likely here as well.”

“We are all Muslims in this city, or almost all,” concurred shopkeeper Shia Fabbraynz. “What happens now if we are viewed as potential terrorists every time we leave the house? If every person who walks into my shop looks at me askance?”

Indeed, Muslims have perpetrated 100% of the bombings in Baghdad since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, compounding the perception that the Muslims of the city have a backlash to fear. “My neighbors haven’t changed the way they look at me in all this time, but that doesn’t necessarily hold true for everyone across the city,” added Massikr. “It’s a serious point of concern, even though the vast majority of the victims have also been Muslims. I wonder how much longer our collective tolerance will last. There’s going to be violence eventually, and Muslims will suffer.”

“People won’t make the distinction between Sunni and Shia when it comes to Islamophobia,” worried the Imam. “Fear erases those important differences. The important thing is to be afraid of those murderous Sunni thugs who bombed us, so they may be exterminated and abandon their heretical ways, and not our just militias and Iranian friends engaged in the noble fight for Shia supremacy and victory. I wish people would know how to preserve those distinctions in their minds when they are attacked by Muslims.”