Of Books And Bombs

The Times (UK) reports on the discovery of a shrine in Teheran's Behesht Zahra cemetery with the inscription: “Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh, born Conakry, Guinea. Martyred in London, August 3, 1989. The first martyr to die on a mission to kill Salman Rushdie.”

The report continues: "...all that is known about Mazeh is that he met his death priming a book bomb in a Paddington hotel room...On the afternoon of August 3, a large explosion killed him in his room, destroying two floors of the building. Anti-terrorist squad detectives later said that he had died while trying to prime a bomb hidden in a book with RDX explosives. A previously unknown Lebanese group, the Organisation of the Mujahidin of Islam, claimed in a letter to a Beirut newspaper that Mazeh, whom they referred to as Gharib, died preparing an attack 'on the apostate Rushdie'.

"Few mourners in Behesht Zahra pay his tomb any attention, and most express a desire to forget Salman Rushdie and rebuild relations with Britain and America."

Thank goodness.