In what could only be described as a selfless valiant act, an Iraqi Muslim man stopped a suicide bomber from causing more carnage than intended.
Najih Shaker Al- Baldawi embraced a suicide bomber of ISIS, stopping the bomber outside the Sayyed Mohammad Shrine in Balad, Iraq where he detonated the vest killing himself and Al- Baldawi before he could go inside the Shrine, which seemed to be the intended target.
Moreover, the suicide bomber wasn't the only terrorist involved in the coordinated attack. About 40 people were killed and 74 injured when two more men blew themselves up, while another was shot dead by security forces, as per reports.
The bombers were stopped before entering the shrine, which would resulted in hundreds more casualties, it has been estimated. The attack on the Shiite Shrine was just one among in Iraq in recent days.
An honourable man from #Balad, Najih Shakir,holds the suicide bomber & attains martyrdom,preventing many more deaths pic.twitter.com/fFKZhxZvv7
— Mohammed Al-Hilli (@malhilli) July 8, 2016
Jan Kubis, United Nations top envoy to Iraq said in a statement: "It is clear the cowardly attack on the shrine aims to spark sectarian tension and drag Iraq back to the dark days of sectarian conflict."