Mosul Suicide Bomb

I really can't understand how or why some people have so degraded themselves that they feel actions like this are acceptable.

Six people died in a suicide bombing in Mosul on Friday.

The bomb destroyed a legitimate military target. No, wait, that wasn't it... The bomb destroyed a nonmilitary but still justifiable target. No, unfortunately that's not it either.

The bomb was detonated at a coffee shop. Yes, you read that correctly: a coffee shop. O, what low and vile miscreants populate such dens of iniquity! O depraved coffee shops, you all must repent of your knavish and base ways!

Give me a break. How far must one fall to believe that attacking a coffee shop is a justifiable action? And it's not as though killing innocent civilian coffee-drinkers sends a very useful political message. I see no redeeming aspects of this at all.

The article I'm referring to can be seen here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/05/01/iraq.main/index.html

Islam has its own just war doctrine, and it is in fact remarkably similar to the Christian-influenced accounts of just conduct in war used in much of the rest of the world.

The basic principle of fighting offered in the Quran is that other communities should be treated as one's own. Fighting is justified for legitimate self-defense, to aid other Muslims and after a violation in the terms of a treaty, but should be stopped if these circumstances cease to exist. Clearly, a coffee shop cannot attack hostilely or break a treaty. In between passages regarding fighting, the Quran reiterates the importance of forgiveness. When one treats other communities as one's own, one will realize that fighting is counterproductive.

The Quran explicitly bans killing civilians and non-combatants (Quran 4:90). Javed Ghamidi and Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi both hold the position that this injunction is not only religiously decreed, but is based in both custom and reason.

One might argue that the situation in Mosul was not a war, and so is not subject to the injunctions above. But the attackers might be on firmer footing if they argued that their actions are part of a legitimate war. Terrorists are not held in high esteem in the history of Islam. Classical Muslim jurists of the Islamic Golden Age. They laid down severe penalties for those who commit "stealth attacks" and/or "spread terror." The harsh punishments for these crimes included death, regardless of the political convictions or religious affiliation of the perpetrators. Terrorists were traditionally granted no quarter.

The coffee shop bomb in Mosul falls under both categories; it was a stealth attack designed to spread terror. Will the traditionally accepted punishment be applied today?