Not much could be more unholy and sacrilegious than to brutally and indiscriminately murder hundreds of Shia mourners on this most sacred day. The mass murder of over 200 innocent people shames us all as human beings. There are no words to adequately capture the utter depravity and barbarity of the slaughter. This was carnage so brutal, so indecent, so inhuman that it is scarcely imaginable. It is sickening to contemplate that human can do this to human, that Muslim can do this to Muslim.

In Karbala more than 100 lay dead, including 15 children. In Baghdad, suicide bombers detonated bombs inside the holy Kazamiya shrine, leaving the mosaic-walled courtyard inside the shrine strewn with the dead and maimed. At last count, the death toll was 65 and still climbing.

Indeed, the death toll could have been even higher. Another bomber was captured at Kazimiya after his explosives failed to detonate, police in Basra discovered two women strapped with explosives marching in an Ashura procession, and other bombs were found near Shia mosques in Basra and Najaf.

It seems clear that the perpetrators are trying to promote strife between the Shia and Sunni communities in an attempt to make Iraq ungovernable. Regardless of what one thinks of the US occupation of Iraq and how much one wishes for their withdrawal, no decent person can support this kind of horrendous butchery that is intended to drive a wedge between Muslims and foment civil war.

Right now, Muslims need to unite and not make war on one another. The massacre of Shias was not restricted to Iraq. In Quetta at least 40 people were killed and 150 injured when three gunmen attacked a procession of Shia worshippers. The spectre of sectarian conflict tearing the Muslim world apart at the seams is too awful and terrifying to even contemplate. The last thing Muslims need right now is a bloody and barbaric civil war, and we must all stand together to condemn the Ashura killings with one voice.