Baghdad, Iraq – Four suicide bombers struck nearly simultaneously in communities of a small Kurdish sect 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.
The bombings came as extremists staged other bold attacks: 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 U.S. soldiers also were reported killed, including five in a helicopter crash.
The U.S. military, meanwhile, sought to press its gains against guerrillas. Some 16,000 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers began a sweep through the Diyala River valley north of Baghdad in pursuit of Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia fighters driven out of strongholds in recent weeks.
U.S. officials believe extremists are attempting to regroup across northern Iraq after being driven from strongholds in and around Baghdad.
Such a retrenching could increase pressure on small communities such as the Yazidis, a primarily Kurdish group 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-Qaeda 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.
The suicide bombings came just after sundown near Qahataniya, 75 miles west of Mosul, said Abdul-Rahman al-Shimiri, the top government official in the area, and Iraq army Capt. Mohammed Ahmed.
At least one of the trucks 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 blasts.
Witnesses said U.S. helicopters swooped in to evacuate wounded to hospitals in Dahuk, a Kurdish city near the Turkish border. Civilian cars and ambulances also rushed injured to hospitals in Dahuk, police said.
“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.”
There was no claim of responsibility, but the attack bore the hallmark of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Elsewhere, a U.S. transport helicopter crashed near an air base in western Iraq, killing five troops, the military said. The CH-47 Chinook helicopter was conducting a routine post-maintenance test flight when it went down near Taqaddum air base, the U.S. military said.
Four other U.S. soldiers were reported killed in combat – three in an explosion near their vehicle Monday in the northwestern Ninevah province. The fourth died of wounds suffered in western Baghdad.
The deaths raised to at least 3,700 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Tuesday’s daylight raid on Baghdad’s Oil Ministry complex showed that armed gangs can still embarrass authorities.
Dozens of 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 raids were reminiscent of an attack by Mahdi Army fighters, dressed as Interior Ministry commandos, who stormed a Higher Education Ministry office Nov. 14 and carried off as many as 200 people. Dozens of those kidnap victims were never found.
Just north of the capital, a suicide truck bomber devastated a key bridge on the highway linking Baghdad with Mosul. The Thiraa Dijla bridge in Taji also was bombed three months ago, leaving only one lane open.
The violence punctuated a day when 16,000 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers began a sweep through the Diyala River valley in a new operation north of Baghdad in pursuit of Sunni insurgents and Shiite militiamen.
Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, a military spokesman in northern Iraq, said the force included 10,000 Americans and 6,000 Iraqis. He said U.S. aircraft used more than 30,000 pounds of munitions to block routes and destroy known and suspected heavy machine-gun positions.
Deadliest terrorist attacks in Iraq war
Aug. 14: Four suicide bombers hit a Kurdish Yazidi community in northwest Iraq, killing at least 175 people and wounding 200, the Iraqi
military said.
July 7: A suicide truck blast rips through a market in a Shiite Turkoman town north of Baghdad, killing at least 160.
April 18: A car bomb hits 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 Kur dish party offices in the northern city of Irbil.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
