Down syndrome youth used as suicide bomber

By Paul McGeough, Baghdad
February 2, 2005

Amar was 19, but he had the mind of a four-year-old. This handicap didn't stop the insurgency's hard men as they strapped explosives to his chest and guided him to a voting centre in suburban Al-Askan.

And before yesterday's sunrise in Baghdad, his grieving parents loaded his broken remains on the roof of a taxi to lead a sorrowful procession to the holy city of Najaf. There, they gave him a ceremonial wash, shrouded him in white cotton and buried him next to the shrine of Imam Ali, the founder of their Shiite creed.

On Sunday we witnessed an act of collective courage by an estimated 8 million Iraqis as they faced down terrorist threats of death and mayhem to vote in Iraq's first multi-party election in half a century.

But the election day story of Amar is from the other side of human behaviour - in a region where too many have knowingly volunteered for an explosive death in the name of their god. He was chosen because he didn't know.

Excerpted

The lowest example of human garbage. If they want to blow themselves up and rot in hell for the rest of eternity that's their choice but to use someone who is incapable of understanding what is happening shows why we must smash them like the roaches that they are.