1 Let us not forget the crazed militiamen who strapped kegs of gun powder to their chests and held lighted matches while holding those same Tory children hostage in the local one-log school room. Talk about seared! "Freedom fighter"... another euphemism for cold-blooded murderer.

2 Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for this. ~C

3 MURDER BEYOND BELIEF. The killing of at least 34 Iraqi children, and the maiming of many more, by two car bombs as they gathered to celebrate the opening of a new sewage plant in Baghad, was one of the most grotesque acts of barbarism since the start of the terrorist insurgency. The grief and despair of bewildered relatives reflect the general frustration and anger at the violence that in this month alone has killed at least 550 Iraqis-an anger that has sometimes been directed at the coalition forces but which ought to be turned on those militants, many from outside Iraq, whose actions are intended to cause as much bloodshed, destruction and chaos as possible. The violence is not mindless, however. The aim of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist planning most of the bombings and kidnappings and who has personally murdered several Western hostages, is to make Iraq ungovernable, plunge it into an endless cycle of death and hostage taking and derail the elections planned for January. By this logic, the more brutal the killings, the more innocent the victims, the more Iraqis will be demoralised and intimidated by the immoral minority who are leading the "resistance" to occupation. There is something perculiarly abhorrent, almost sadistic, about the attacks on the water-pumping station. Throughout the Middle East, water has always held a symbolic as well as economic importance, valued for its life-giving purity, coolness and spiritual refreshment. One of the worst sights in Baghdad at the end of the war last year was the stinking sewage lying in gutters and fetid pools. Proper drainage in poor districts had for years been neglected by Saddam Hussein; war damage to power supplies and pumping stations exacerbated the threat of disease from contaminated water. The ceremony held in the slum district of Baghdad was to celebrate the refurbishment by local contractors, with US support, of a sewage plant, looted after the fall of Saddam, that would make a vital difference to life in that neighbourhood. Whether or not al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda knew that children would be there, the bombing was an outrage that reveals the full depravity of the terrorists targeting Iraqis and sabotaging their hopes for the future. Gauging the despairing mood of Iraqis is becoming ever more difficult. Honest eye-witnesses is virtually impossible, so great is the threat to all Western and Arab journalists. But the attempt to use this latest incident as evidence of rising popular anger at the coalition is as tendentious as it is self-serving. Iraqis do want to take charge of their own destiny. But they do not want the coalition troops to leave in a rush. They do not want to see their country surrendered to terrorism and anarchy, their freedom hijacked by zealots or their recovery sacrificed to ethnic violence. Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi Prime Minister, insists elections will still be held in January. Every effort must be made to thwart the terrorists' obscene attempts to sabotage them and the country.

4 gutter repair