This AP article from the ABC News site caught my attention this morning. It seems every day we hear of more bombings, more atrocities committed by terrorists. I am impressed that they even use the term ” a radical Muslim sect”. 
A car loaded with explosives crashed into the main United Nations’ building in Nigeria’s capital and exploded Friday, killing at least 18 people in one of the deadliest assaults on the international body in a decade. A radical Muslim sect blamed for a series of attacks in the country claimed responsibility for the bombing, a major escalation of their sectarian fight against Nigeria’s weak central government.
The brazen assault in a neighborhood surrounded by heavily fortified diplomatic posts represented the first suicide attack to target foreigners in oil-rich Nigeria, where locals already live in fear of the radical Boko Haram sect. The group, which has reported links to al-Qaida, wants to implement a strict version of Shariah law in the nation and is vehemently opposed to Western education and culture.
While police officers and local officials have primarily bore the brunt of Boko Haram’s rage, now everyone seems to be a target in a nation often divided by religion and ethnicity.
“It is an attack on the global community,” said Viola Onwuliri, a junior Nigerian foreign minister, as she looked at the bomb site.
A sedan loaded with explosives crashed through two gates at the exit of the United Nations compound Friday morning as guards tried in vain to stop it, witnesses told The Associated Press. The suicide bomber inside drove the car through the glass front of the main reception area of the building and detonated the explosives, inflicting the most damage possible, a spokesman for the Nigerian National Emergency Management Agency said.
At least 18 people died in the attack, according to an AP survey of morgues at four major Abuja hospitals. Nigerian Health Minister Mohammad Ali Pate made a public appeal for blood donations, saying there were at least 60 injured people alone at the nearby National Hospital.
The headquarters, known as U.N. House, had offices for about 400 employees working for 26 U.N. humanitarian and development agencies. Authorities worked Friday to account for everyone in the building at the time of the blast.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the car bombing “an assault on those who devote their lives to helping others.”
“We condemn this terrible act, utterly,” Ban told reporters at U.N. headquarters. “We do not yet have precise casualty figures but they are likely to be considerable. A number of people are dead; many more are wounded.”
Said Djinnit, the special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for West Africa, told the AP that he expects the casualties are mostly local staff.
The attack was one of the deadliest attacks on the United Nations in a decade. Seventeen U.N. civilian staff members were killed along with dozens of others in two terrorist car bombings that targeted U.N. and other premises in Algiers on Dec. 11, 2007. Friday’s bombing also came just days after the U.N. marked the eighth anniversary of the Aug. 19, 2003 bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad that killed 15 U.N. staff including top envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and seven others.
The attack was also condemned by leaders around the world and members of the U.N. Security Council who individually deplored the targeting of the U.N. at an open meeting on U.N. peacekeeping.
We read of  these attacks until sometimes it seems we are immune to them. They are daily in the news. A car bomb here, a suicide bomber there. Will there ever be a solution to this madness? Since these Islamic militants believe they need to battle everyone who doesn’t submit to them, I do not think so.  And I wonder how they can worship a God who demands so much blood. Yes, I know that is not a literal truth, but it is what they believe, what they practice. Just as I used to shudder at the thoughts of tossing someone into a volcano, or laying a person across a stone altar and cutting out their heart, so I also cringe at this.