A terrorist instructor’s presentation backfired when the suicide vest he was demonstrating with detonated, killing himself and 21 other members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group.
The insurgent’s camp where the explosion took place was in Iraq, roughly 60 miles north-west of Baghdad, where the instructor was teaching others how to use the suicide bomb he was demonstrating with. ISIS has recently been disavowed by Al Qaeda for it’s role in infighting within the Syrian rebel groups and an unwillingness to follow instructions given by the official Al Qaeda affiliate. Despite the loss of support, ISIS has recently been part of the worst wave of violence in Iraq for the past five years that claimed over 9000 lives last year, and 1000 in the past month alone.
Due to this wave of violence, many Iraqi’s viewed the explosion with dark humor. In an interview with The New York Times, Raad Hashim, who worked near the site of the explosion, shared how he believed that “This is God showing justice, This is God sending a message to the bad people and the criminals in the world, to tell them to stop the injustice and to bring peace. Evil will not win in the end. It’s always life that wins over death.” Another Iraqi citizen again in an interview with The New York Times shared how he “heard this today when my friend rang me in the afternoon to tell me about it. He was so happy as if he was getting married. Which made me happy as well. I hope that their graves burn and all the rest of them burn as well. I was not happy with the number killed, though: I wanted more of them to die, as I remember my friend who was killed by a suicide bomber in 2007.”
The aftermath of the explosion left 22 militants killed and 15 wounded, with an additional 8 militants captured when they tried to escape. Police and Army officials also seized stores of other explosives, including 10 car bombs that were ready for use.
