Unspeakable horror for women: Where are the feminists?

Samarra, Iraq -- Like their hardline Islamist brethren in other nations -- such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia, among others -- the Islamic State of Iraq (or “ISI,” the name under which al Qaeda in Iraq has organized in Iraq) has built a brutal reputation not only for terrorism against its members’ own countrymen and against the coalition, but also for being a proponent of the most medieval, fundamentalist interpretation -- and enforcement – of what its leaders claim to be the laws of the Koran.

Enforcement of these laws -- which can perhaps be described as Shari’a taken to the greatest extreme -- has included taking measures to brutally punish people who commit the slightest offense, from smoking, to a woman failing to cover her head in public, to a man not growing a long enough beard. The strictest social mores are to be observed and any deviation from the standard can result in a punishment consisting of torture, mutilation, or death -- including, as the western world has seen on a few occasions (though not enough to grasp the extent of its use), beheading.

Unfortunately for those who might have chosen to join this hardline Islamist faction in hopes of keeping more virtuous company, the recent apprehension of a key ISI figure showed just how hypocritical – and, as if more evidence was necessary, unspeakably inhuman -- the leadership of that movement is capable of being.

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