[ot-caption title=”A car bombing orchestrated by IS takes lives in Iraq.  (via Eli Medellin/Wikipedia Images)”]

By now, most people have heard about the horrors of the Paris terrorist attacks that occurred on November 13th, 2015.  The night after the terrorist attacks by the Islamic State (also known as IS or ISIS), numerous news sources were able to report on the story, and it spread like wild fire across the United States and the world.  By the next day, Facebook was offering a filter to add to your profile picture to support France and a Facebook check-in was created to ensure that loved ones were safe.  Many other terrorist attacks committed by the Islamic State around the same time as the French attacks did not receive nearly as much media attention.

Since the beginning of 2015, there have been at least forty-six IS terrorist attacks that killed or injured at least twenty people.  Many of them received little to no news coverage in the United States.  Most recently, two different IS terrorist attacks occurred within one day of the Paris attacks in Beirut, Lebanon and Baghdad, Iraq.

The Beirut suicide bombings occurred on November 12, 2015.  During rush hour in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Bourj al-Barajneh, three men incited terror upon innocent civilians.  Although only two of the mens’ explosive belts fully detonated, forty-three people were killed and over two hundred were injured.  This attack marks the deadliest suicide bombing in Lebanon since the 1990s.  While this event was extremely tragic, there has been one moment of courage that has not received much news coverage.  After Adel Termos survived the first suicide bombing of the day with his young daughter, he noticed another bomber running towards a mosque where many people were praying.  Bravely, Termos ran after him and tackled him, preventing him from reaching the mosque.  While Termos was attacking him, the bomber detonated his vest and Termos was killed.  By sacrificing himself, Termos managed to save hundreds of other civilians, including his daughter.  Multiple witnesses have confirmed this story and Termos has become a well-known name in Lebanon.

There was another attack by IS on  November 13, 2015, the same day of the Paris attacks.  An IS suicide bomber attended a funeral for a Shiite militia fighter who died while fighting IS.  At the funeral, twenty-one people were killed and forty-six were injured.  In a different part of Baghdad, a roadside bomb was detonated near a Shiite shrine which killed five people and injured fifteen others.  These attacks in Baghdad are not isolated and have had the recurring theme of IS members targeting Shiite muslims.

It has been a violent week for the entire world, but instead of being divided, the world is uniting. Brittany Frye, an American living in Beirut, commented on last week’s event, “So in terms of the past week’s events, people here know all too well about terror and grief, but also about resilience and coming together in the face of tragedy. It’s imperative to remember that life must go on as normal – any other kind of response would be giving in to what these terrorist groups want.”

No matter the religion, ethnicity, or gender of terror victims, all lives are important and matter.  To overcome IS, the world is coming together in search of a solution.

Sources: USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wikipedia, Live Science, Today

Photo source: Eli Medellin