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Iraq strike kills 175

Four suicide bombers attack a religious sect, injuring 200.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published August 15, 2007

BAGHDAD - Four suicide bombers struck nearly simultaneously in a Kurdish-speaking area in northwestern Iraq late Tuesday, killing at least 175 people and wounding 200 more, Iraqi military and local officials said.

The death toll was the highest in a 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. And it was the most vicious attack yet against the Yazidis, an ancient religious community in the region whose members are considered infidels by some Muslims.

"Half the houses are completely collapsed because they were made from clay," said Capt. Mohammed Ahmad of the Iraqi army's 3rd Division. He said scores of families were obliterated.

One Iraqi officer described the scene as apocalyptic: "It looks like a nuclear bomb hit the villages."

The bombings came as extremists staged other bold attacks: leveling a bridge outside Baghdad and abducting five officials from an Oil Ministry compound in the capital in a raid using gunmen dressed as security officers.

The suicide bombings came just after sundown near Qahataniya, 75 miles west of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, said Abdul-Rahman al-Shimiri, the top government official in the area, and Iraq army Capt. Mohammed Ahmed.

At least one of the four trucks used in the attack 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, scene of two of the blasts.

The Islamic State in Iraq, an al-Qaida front group, distributed leaflets a week ago warning residents near the scene of the bombings that an attack was imminent because Yazidis are "anti-Islamic."

The sect has been under fire since some members stoned an 18-year-old Yazidi woman to death in April. The woman, Duaa Khalil Aswad, had converted to Islam and fled her family with a Muslim boyfriend, and police said she 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 Web sites. Its authenticity could not be independently verified, but recent attacks on Yazidis have been blamed on al-Qaida-linked Sunni insurgents seeking revenge.

The center of the Yazidi faith is around Mosul, but smaller communities exist in Turkey, Syria and other places.

In Tuesday's attack, witnesses said U.S. 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."

The Bush administration denounced the bombings as "barbaric attacks on innocent civilians." White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino expressed sympathy to the families of those killed or wounded.

There was no claim of responsibility, but the attack bore the hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq, which has been regrouping in the north after being driven from havens in Anbar and Diyala provinces.

Baghdad was spared major violence Tuesday in another sign that a six-month-old security crackdown in the capital is disrupting extremists' firepower. But the brazen daylight raid on the Oil Ministry complex showed that armed gangs can still embarrass authorities.

More than 50 gunmen wearing security force uniforms stormed the compound and abducted a deputy oil minister and four other officials who were spirited away in a convoy of military-style vehicles.

The kidnappings - similar to a commandolike raid on Iraq's Finance Ministry in May in which five Britons were seized and have not been found - included Abdel-Jabar al-Wagaa, a senior assistant to Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani, the Oil Ministry spokesman said.

Just north of the capital, a suicide truck bomber devastated a key bridge on the highway linking Baghdad with Mosul. Police said at least 10 people died.

The Thiraa Dijla bridge in Taji - near a U.S. air base 12 miles north of the capital - also was bombed three months ago, leaving only one lane open.

Fast Facts:

Deadliest attacks

Some of the deadliest attacks in Iraq since the war began in March 2003:

Tuesday: Four suicide bombers hit a Yazidi community in northwest Iraq, killing at least 175 people and wounding 200 others, the Iraqi military said.

July 7: A suicide truck bomber rips through a market in a Shiite Turkman town north of Baghdad, killing 160.

April 18: A car bomb explodes at a Baghdad market as workers leave for the day, killing 127.

Feb. 3: A suicide truck bomber strikes a market in a predominantly Shiite area of Baghdad, killing 137.

Nov. 23, 2006: Mortar rounds and five car bombs kill 215 in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City.

Sept. 29, 2005: Three suicide attackers detonate car bombs in an outdoor market and two nearby commercial streets in the mostly Shiite town of Balad, north of Baghdad, killing at least 102.

Sept. 14, 2005: A suicide car bomber strikes as day laborers gather shortly after dawn in a heavily Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad, killing 112.

Feb. 28, 2005: A suicide car bomber targets mostly Shiite police and national guard recruits in Hillah, killing 125.

Feb. 1, 2004: Twin suicide bombers kill 109 in two Kurdish party offices in the northern city of Irbil.

Aug. 29, 2003: A car bomb explodes outside a mosque in Najaf, killing at least 85, including Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim.

The Yazidi faith

Yazidis are an ethnic group whose religion blends elements of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yazidis worship an angel figure, Malak Taus, or peacock angel, that is considered to be the devil by some Muslims and Christians. Yazidis, who don't believe in hell, deny that.

[Last modified August 15, 2007, 01:30:11]