US Barbarism: From Wedding Bells to Funeral Bells

By Sarah Raad, Al-Ahed News 

A wedding is meant to be a day of joy and celebration. Yet across Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Iran from 2002 to 2026, wedding gatherings were repeatedly struck by US missiles and airstrikes, with hundreds of civilians including women, children and newlyweds, losing their lives on what should have been their happiest day.

From 2002 to 2026, at least six documented US attacks targeted wedding ceremonies. On July 1, 2002, more than 100 people were killed in Oruzgan, Afghanistan. Two years later, an attack in Anbar, Iraq, on May 19, 2004, claimed 42 lives, including 11 women and 14 children.

In Nangarhar, Afghanistan, 47 people were killed on July 6, 2008, including 39 women and children and the bride herself. Months later, on November 3, 2008, another attack in Kandahar claimed 37 lives, including 23 children, while 27 others were wounded.

The pattern continued in Taiz, Yemen, where an attack on September 28, 2015 claimed 131 lives, most of them women and children. Most recently, on September 1, 2026, five people lost their lives and 67 were wounded, including several children, in Sirik, Iran.

The repeated attacks expose the barbarism of US military aggression, where even weddings and civilian gatherings have been turned into scenes of mourning, leaving families to bear the lasting consequences of violence on moments meant for celebration.