Rescuers dug through the muddy wreckage of collapsed clay houses
in northwest Iraq on Wednesday, uncovering victims of four suicide
bombings that Iraqi officials said killed at least 200 people in
one of the worst attacks of the war.
A destroyed
vehicle lies at the scene of a suicide bomb attack in Hilla, about
100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad, August 15,
2007.
The victims were members of a small Kurdish sect - the Yazidis -
sometimes attacked by Muslim extremists who consider them
infidels.
Four suicide truck bombers struck nearly simultaneously on
Tuesday, killing more people than any other concerted attack since
Nov. 23, when 215 people were killed by mortar fire and five car
bombs in Baghdad's Shiite Muslim enclave of Sadr City.
It was most vicious attack yet against the Yazidis, an ancient
religious community in the region. Some 300 people were wounded in
the blasts, said Dakhil Qassim, the mayor of the nearby town of
Sinjar.
Qassim said the four trucks approached the town of Qahataniya,
75 miles west of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, from dirt roads
and all exploded within minutes of each other. He said the casualty
tolls were expected to rise.
"We are still digging with our hands and shovels because we
can't use cranes because many of the houses were built of clay,"
Qassim said. "We are expecting to reach the final death toll
tomorrow or day after tomorrow as we are getting only pieces of
bodies."
The bombings came as extremists staged other bold attacks on
Tuesday: leveling a key bridge outside Baghdad and abducting five
officials from an Oil Ministry compound in the capital in a raid
using gunmen dressed as security officers. Nine US soldiers also
were reported killed, including five in a helicopter crash.
An Iraqi
policeman inspects the wreckage of a car used in a suicide bombing
on a road in southern Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of
Baghdad, Iraq on Tuesday.
The carnage dealt a serious blow to US efforts to pacify the
country with just weeks to go before the top US commander Gen.
David Petraeus and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker are to deliver a
pivotal report to the US Congress amid a fierce debate over whether
to begin withdrawing American troops from Iraq.
US officials believe extremists are attempting to regroup across
northern Iraq after being driven from strongholds in and around
Baghdad, and commanders have warned they expected Sunni insurgents
to step up attacks in a bid to upstage the report.
The Yazidis comprise a primarily Kurdish religious sect with
ancient roots, that worships an angel figure considered to be the
devil by some Muslims and Christians. Yazidis, who don't believe in
hell or evil, deny that.
The Islamic State in Iraq, an al-Qaida front group, distributed
leaflets a week ago warning residents near the scene of Tuesday's
bombings that an attack was imminent because Yazidis are
"anti-Islamic."
The sect has been under fire since some members stoned a Yazidi
teenager to death in April. She had converted to Islam and fled her
family with a Muslim boyfriend, and police said 18-year-old Duaa
Khalil Aswad was killed by relatives who disapproved of the
match.
A grainy video showing gruesome scenes of the woman's killing
was later posted on Iraqi websites. Its authenticity could not be
independently verified, but recent attacks on Yazidis have been
blamed on al-Qaida-linked Sunni insurgents seeking revenge.
A curfew was in place Wednesday across towns west of Mosul, and
US and Iraqi forces were conducting house-to-house searches in
response to the bombings, according to Iraqi police and Army
officers who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security
concerns. Twenty suspects were arrested, they said.
Meanwhile, the US military heralded success in Day Two of a
nationwide offensive against Sunni insurgents with links to
al-Qaida and Shiite militiamen. Ten thousand US troops and 6,000
Iraqi soldiers were involved in air and ground assaults across
Diyala and Salahuddin provinces, both north of Baghdad.
More than 300 artillery rounds, rockets and bombs were dropped
in the Diyala River valley late Monday and early Tuesday, the US
military said in a statement. Three suspected al-Qaida gunmen were
killed and eight were taken prisoner, the military said. American
troops also discovered several roadside bombs rigged to explode, as
well as a booby-trapped house, it said.
In the Iraqi capital, US special forces and Iraqi soldiers
detained three suspected al-Qaida in Iraq leaders and four Shiite
militia suspects in separate raids Tuesday, the military said.
Another Shiite extremist accused of attacking US forces was
captured the same day in Najaf, a Shiite holy city 100 miles south
of Baghdad, it said in a statement.
Thousands of followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr
took to the streets in Najaf in a peaceful protest against the
detention. Demonstrators shouted anti-American slogans and called
for an end to what they called random raids and rights violations
targeting the movement.
The US military issued another statement Wednesday putting the
death toll in the Yazidi bombings at 60. But the Iraqi estimate was
based on body counts from local hospitals and morgues to which US
officials had no access so the total was believed to be higher.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a statement
Wednesday blaming the bombings on "terrorism powers who seek to
fuel sectarian strife and damage our people's national unity."
"These crimes will not prevent us from standing up to challenges
and moving ahead with the political process to impose law and bring
criminals and outlaws to justice," the statement said.
At least one of the trucks in Tuesday's bombings was an
explosives-laden fuel tanker, police said. Shops were set ablaze
and apartment buildings were reported crumbled by the powerful
explosions.
"My friend and I were thrown high in the air. I still don't know
what happened to him," said Khadir Shamu, a 30-year-old Yazidi who
was injured in Tal Azir, the scene of two blasts.
Witnesses said US helicopters swooped in to evacuate wounded to
hospitals in Dahuk, a Kurdish city near the Turkish border about 60
miles north of Qahataniya. Civilian cars and ambulances also rushed
injured to hospitals in Dahuk, police said.
"I gave blood. I saw many maimed people with no legs or hands,"
said Ghassan Salim, a 40-year-old Yazidi teacher who went to a
hospital to donate blood. "Many of the wounded were left in the
hospital garage or in the streets because the hospital is
small."
In other violence Wednesday, a suicide car bomber killed two
people and wounded seven south of Baghdad, according to Iraqi
police. And a parked car bomb targeted a police patrol in southern
Mosul, killing a civilian and injuring ten others, police and army
officers said.
(China Daily August 16, 2007)
