16/08/2007

Iraq Attack Claims 250 Lives

Suicide truck bombings in Northern Iraq have claimed the lives of at least 250 Iraqis and officials warned the death toll could rise to 500.

Suicide bombers drove five fuel tankers into two villages near Mosul, where members of the Yazidi religious sect live, which has been the target of Muslim extremists who believe the sect to be blasphemous.

Rescue workers are still searching for bodies underneath the rubble, in the worst attack since last November, when 215 people were killed by mortar fire and five car bombs in Baghdad’s Shia Muslim enclave of Sadr City.

US officials are blaming Al-Qaeda for the atrocity.

Commenting on the Iragi bombings, Foreign Secretary, David Milband said: "The reports of the violence in Northern Iraq, whose origin has not yet been established, are a murderous blow against the Iraqi people by those who seek only destruction."

Tension has grown between the Yazidis and local Muslims since a Yazidi girl was stoned to death by her own community on April 7, after reportedly running away to marry a Muslim man.

On April 23, gunmen shot dead 23 Yazidi workers on their way home to the dead girl’s village of Beshika, outside Mosul.

(LC/SP)

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