Oh Holy Shit

Earlier, in the Ya Allah post, I referred you to a Knight-Ridder article about Samarra.

Something very, very bad happened there today. Someone blew up the Golden Mosque in Samarra. Samarra is a Sunni city, but the mosque is of special importance to Shiite Muslims. Tradition holds that the Imam Mahdi ("the Guided One") ascended to Heaven from that spot, and that he will return when the end of the world is at hand. Well, in Iraq, it just might be. This, as noted, is very bad.

Unbelievably bad. Imagine if, say, Catholics had blown up Westminster Abbey during the reign of Henry VIII. Only much, much worse.

The building was gorgeous before the blast:



And here it is after:



I don't know what else to say, other than, as usual, thanks to Errol for hosting our images.