… all from just the last month:

1) Suicide Bomber Kills 5 At UN Food Office In Pakistan (Salman Masood/The New York Times; Oct 5)

ISLAMABAD: A suicide bomber dressed in the uniform of one of Pakistan’s security forces struck the United Nations World Food Program offices in Islamabad on Monday, killing five people in what the police said was a serious breach in a building tightly guarded by private security officers.

The interior minister, A. Rehman Malik, said that the bomber asked for permission to use the bathroom, entered the building and detonated about 16 pounds of explosives in the lobby just after noon, when the compound was filled with people….

A prominent international presence here, the World Food Program provides food aid to as many as 10 million people across Pakistan….

2) Suicide Car Bomber Kills 49 At Pakistan Market (Alex Rodriguez/The Los Angeles Times; Oct 10)

ISLAMABAD: A suicide car bomb tore through a bustling market in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Friday, killing at least 49 people in what appeared to be the Pakistani Taliban’s latest broadside against a government that says it is preparing a significant military offensive against the militants.

The explosion, which also injured more than 100 people, occurred at the Khyber Bazaar in the capital of Pakistan’s violence-racked North-West Frontier Province.

Though there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, Pakistani officials said they believed it was the work of the Pakistani Taliban. The militant group has vowed to ratchet up suicide attacks in response to the Pakistani government’s preparations for an all-out offensive in South Waziristan, a primary base of operations for the Taliban and Al Qaeda….

The attacker Friday hit a crowded market. The assailant drove his car through the bazaar and set off about 110 pounds of explosives, said Shafqat Malik, a police bomb squad specialist.

The blast ripped through market stalls and nearby buildings, scorching and flipping over a passing minibus filled with people. Many of the dead were found in the charred vehicle frame.

Pools of blood dotted the area, littered with pieces from destroyed vehicles….

The attack at Khyber Bazaar comes nearly two weeks after a suicide car bombing near a state-owned bank in Peshawar killed 12 people and wounded 91.

That same day, a suicide attacker in a pickup truck rammed a barricade outside a police station in the town of Bannu, about 100 miles southwest of Peshawar. That explosion killed 15 people and injured 60….

3) Pakistan Violence Continues As Car Bomb Kills 41 (PBS NewsHour; Oct 12)

A deadly blast ripped through a market in the restive Swat Valley on Monday, continuing a wave of attacks over the past week across Pakistan.

The car bomb detonated in the Alpuri market in the northwest Shangla district of Swat Valley, a region that was declared clear of militants by the Pakistani military after a summer offensive.

“Such attacks cannot deter us from the offensive against the militants,” said provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain, according to the Associated Press. “We will continue our fight till the death of the last terrorist.”

Police say the target was a military convoy. No one immediately claimed responsibility.

Forty one people were killed, including six security officers. Another 45 people were wounded. The attack is the fourth in just over a week in Pakistan. Last week a suicide bomber blew himself up in Islamabad and another car bomb exploded in Peshawar that killed 53 people.

Over the weekend, Taliban militants disguised as soldiers infiltrated the Pakistan army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi and took 42 hostages, resulting in a 22-hour standoff that ended with commandos storming the building.

Nine gunmen, 11 soldiers and three of the hostages were killed. The attack was planned in South Waziristan, a stronghold for Pakistan’s Taliban, the army said. The Taliban, however, said the strike originated in a Punjabi faction, indicating that the Taliban’s reach has extended beyond its base in the Pashtun areas of Pakistan near the Afghan border….

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq claimed responsibility for the raid and said it was to avenge the killing of leader Baitullah Mehsud who was killed in August by an American missile strike.

“We will take revenge for our martyrs and will carry out more attacks, whether it’s the GHQ or something bigger,” Tariq told Reuters by phone.

4) Iraqi Town Hit By Suicide Blast (The BBC; Oct 13)

At least eight people have been killed and ten wounded in a suicide bombing in north-eastern Iraq, medical and security officials say.

The attack was in the town of Buhriz, which lies to the south of Baquba.

According to reports, the bomber detonated an explosive vest at a tea shop near the market.

The target appeared to have been the leader of one of the Sunni Arab militia groups which had switched support from al-Qaeda to US forces.

Laith Misha’an, the local leader of the pro-government Sunni militia known as The Awakening Council, was killed in the attack.

The violence comes a day after an attack in the same village killed two sons of the local mayor.

According to the BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse, in Baghdad, prominent members of The Awakening Council have been increasingly targeted in the past few months.

5) Dozens Killed In Coordinated Attacks In Pakistan (Sally Sara/Australia’s ABC News; Oct 15)

ISLAMABAD: Up to 30 people have been killed in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in Pakistan, in a sign militants are warning the military to abort its planned offensive on the border with Afghanistan.

Terrorists attacked the headquarters of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and two police training centres in Lahore.

The assault at the FIA is now over, but gunfire and grenade blasts continue at two other police training centres.

Commandos have surrounded the police academy at Bedian, on the outskirts of the city, and police believe up to 10 terrorists may be inside.

There are fears for the families of police recruits living in the compound….

Several senior police were killed or injured in the attacks, particularly at the FIA site.

The attacks were launched almost simultaneously. Some of the witnesses say three of the attackers at one of the police training centres were female.

There was heavy gunfire, grenades were thrown and several of the attackers were reportedly wearing suicide vests.

In a separate attack, a suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives into the front of a police station in the north-western district of Kohat.

Several children were among the dead and injured….

6) At Least 11 Dead In Pakistan Suicide Bombing (Sally Sara/Australia’s ABC News; Oct 16)

ISLAMABAD: At least 11 people have been killed and several injured in a suicide car bombing in Pakistan.

The blast has severely damaged a mosque in the north-western city of Peshawar.

Police say the suicide bomber drove a car packed with up to 70 kilograms of explosives into the cantonment neighbourhood of the city.

It is unclear whether the target was a nearby mosque or police station.

The blast was so powerful it destroyed one of the walls of the mosque and left a large crater.

Several police were injured but most of the victims were civilians, including women and children.

Police also say a female bomber blew herself up on a motorcycle outside a police building in Peshawar….

7) Iraq Suicide Bomber Kills 12 At Mosque (CBC News; Oct 16)

A suicide bomber opened fire on worshippers on Friday at a mosque in northern Iraq and then blew himself up, killing 12 people and injuring 65, officials said.

The attack occurred in the city of Tal Afar, about 60 kilometres northwest of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, the site of a number of attacks in the last year by Sunni-backed insurgents.

A local police official said the attacker entered the mosque as the imam was beginning his sermon, fired shots from an AK-47 rifle and then detonated his explosives belt when he ran out of ammunition. An official with the Tal Afar hospital confirmed the casualty count.

The imam, Abdul-Satar Hassan, a member of Iraq’s largest Sunni political party, was also killed in the attack, the police official said.

It’s not clear if the imam was the target of the attack, but a number of Sunni clerics have been targeted in the last month.

Last week a Sunni cleric driving home after delivering a sermon in Saqlawiyah, 75 kilometres northwest of Baghdad, was killed by a bomb attached to his car. A Sunni cleric in Mosul was also killed by a car bomb in September. Earlier this week a cleric who leads the largest Sunni mosque in Baghdad was wounded in a similar attack.

Tal Afar and the area around Mosul is considered one of the last strongholds of the Sunni-backed insurgency and has been the site of a number of horrific bombings recently.

In July two suicide bombers launched a co-ordinated attack that killed 38 people and injured 66 there, and in March a suicide blast at a market killed a policeman and injured eight people.

One of the worst weeks of violence in the city occurred in March 2007, when two truck bombs exploded in markets, killing at least 63 and wounding 150. The following day off-duty Shia police officers seeking revenge in Sunni neighbourhoods killed at least 45 people….

8) Iran Suicide Blast Toll Mounts To 49 (Pakistan Times; Oct 19)

TEHRAN: The death toll in a suicide bomb attack in Sistan area in Iran has risen to 49.

Earlier 35 people were killed by a suicide bomber including seven senior Revolutionary Guards commanders and other notable people in one of the deadliest attacks on Iran’s elite military institution.

The attack occurred early on Sunday in the Pishin district of Sistan province in the country’s southeast near the border with Pakistan and injured several dozen as officers were preparing to stage a meeting.

Two high-ranking commanders among those dead included the deputy head of the Guards’ ground forces, General Nourali Shoushtari, and the Guards’ commander in the Sistan-Baluchistan province, General Rajabali Mohammadzadeh….

According to Ynetnews.com and other sources, a local Sunni group has claimed responsibility.

9) Five Killed In Suicide Bomb Attacks At Pakistan University (Alex Rodriquez/The Los Angeles Times; Oct 20)

ISLAMABAD: After unleashing a vicious wave of attacks on high-profile security buildings and crowded marketplaces in Pakistan this month, militants set their sights Tuesday on one of the capital’s schools. Two near-simultaneous suicide bomb attacks on an Islamic university killed five people and wounded 22.

The assault on an academic building and a women’s cafeteria came on the fourth day of a long-awaited military offensive to uproot the Taliban and Al Qaeda from their stronghold in South Waziristan, a rugged and largely ungoverned region along the Afghan border….

Authorities had received threats that schools in Islamabad and its twin city, Rawalpindi, might be targeted for attacks….

The first blast occurred at a two-story, red-brick building that houses the women’s cafeteria. Witnesses said as many as 70 female students were inside when the bomber detonated the explosives at the main entrance.

“It felt like the earth shook, and then there was fire, smoke and broken glass everywhere,” said Nida Sana, 23, an economics student who was seated with five friends at the back of the cafeteria. “I never saw the bomber, but after the blast I saw dead bodies of girls, badly mutilated.”…

Witnesses said that about 30 seconds after the blast at the cafeteria, a second explosion tore through a second-floor hallway at an Islamic studies building housing classrooms and faculty offices….

The blast tore a 4-foot-wide hole in the hallway wall. Broken glass and smoldering wood littered the bloodstained floor….

10) Bombings Kill 24 In Three Militant Attacks In Pakistan (The Age; Oct 25)

ISLAMABAD: Three bombings have killed 24 people in north-west Pakistan, as the army pushes a week-long offensive deeper into al-Qaeda and Taliban territory near the Afghan border.

In one blast, a suicide bomber on a bicycle attacked a Pakistani air base, killing seven – the latest attempt by militants to strike at the heart of this nuclear-armed nation’s security forces.

An explosion that struck a bus travelling in the Mohmand tribal region killed 17, including women and children. Also on Friday, a car bomb near a restaurant and a marriage hall in Peshawar wounded 15.

About 200 people have been killed this month in a string of militant attacks on military, police and civilian targets.

11) Twin Suicide Car Bombs In Baghdad Kill 147 (CTV News; Oct 25)

Iraqi officials say at least 147 people have been killed by two powerful suicide car bombs, in the country’s deadliest attack in more than two years.

At least 721 people were injured in Sunday’s blasts in downtown Baghdad, only a few hundred metres from the heavily fortified Green Zone. Three of the injured are American contractors, a spokesperson from the U.S. embassy said.

The car bombs went off outside the Justice Ministry and the Baghdad Provincial Council. So far, 60 government workers have been reported dead. Thirty-five were from the Ministry of Justice and 25 were from the Baghdad Provincial Council, police and medical officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The streets where the bombs went off were just reopened a few months ago, when blast walls were repositioned to allow traffic to flow closer to government buildings….

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but car bombs have often been used by Sunni insurgents in an attempt to destabilize the country’s Shiite-dominated government….

Mark Plotkin, a political analyst with Washington-based radio station WTOP-FM, told CTV News Channel on Sunday that the violent bombing may come as a surprise to many Americans.

“I think that they feel ‘alright, all the concentration is now on Afghanistan — the war in Iraq is over,’” he said. “People have to face up to the reality that that war is not over, is not complete, and incidents like this will occur whether we’re there or not.”…

12) 36 Killed In Twin Suicide Attacks In Pakistan (TwoCircles.net/The Indo-Asian News Service; Nov 3)

ISLAMABAD: The bloody wave of terror strikes continued in Pakistan as two separate suicide attacks hit the country, in Rawalpindi and Lahore, killing at least 36 people and injuring 39 Monday….

The first suicide attack was in Rawalpindi, close to a luxury hotel and a bank. At least 34 people were killed and 32 injured in the attack. The second attack took place on the outskirts of Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, killing the bomber and his accomplice and injuring seven others.

The Rawalpindi blast occurred barely 500 metres from the Pakistani Army Headquarters, which had come under Taliban attack Oct 10 when 10 terrorists in military uniform laid siege to it and killed at least 19 people, including nine raiders, in the 22-hour standoff.

The massive explosion took place on a day when the Pakistan government offered a reward of $5 million for information on the country’s Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud and 18 of his associates.

The blast occurred at 10.40 a.m. when people had queued up at the bank to collect their salaries….

The government released an advertisement Monday offering cash reward totalling $5 million for concrete information on the whereabouts of Mehsud and his associates, who have stepped up terror strikes across Pakistan.

The advertisement says: “Anyone who captures these people dead or alive or provides concrete information, the government will award them a cash reward.”

“The banned Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) terrorists are daily involved in deadly activities and because of their activities innocent Muslims are going to the valley of death,” it added….

If atheism has inspired a single atheist to commit an atrocity in the last ten years that’s at all comparable to even one of these 12 examples from just the last month, my many news sources seem to have completely missed it. (If YOU know of one, please share.)

As things stand, it’s hard to understand how so many theists from the pope on down can continue to blame atheists and humanists for the world’s problems while turning a blind eye to the many evils that seem intimately connected to the religious beliefs of a wide range of people….

For many more examples of the kinds of behavior that Islam (the so-called “Religion of Peace”) has been helping to inspire in some of the most religious areas on earth, see the entries I posted on Feb 17; Jan 26; Oct 21, 2008; Aug 20, 2008; Jan 19, 2008; and Jan 16, 2008 (among numerous others I could have provided links to).

(If you happen to be a theist yourself, you might want to bookmark this page and come back to it whenever you’re feeling angry at atheists or humanists for daring to put up a sign.)