[linstah]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/hundre...6857593225.html

FOUR massive truck bombs have killed at least 200 people in two villages in a Kurdish-speaking area of Iraq near the Syrian border, destroying houses and wounding hundreds.

The bombs — including at least one rigged to a fuel tanker — detonated in quick succession about 8pm in Qahtaniya and Jazeera, a pair of towns filled mostly with Yazidis, Kurdish-speaking adherents of a pre-Islamic religion.

Yazidis have been frequent targets of Sunni attacks since April when some Yazidis stoned a Yazidi woman to death for dating a Sunni Arab man.

In another attack, at least 100 gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms kidnapped several senior Oil Ministry officials from their homes in a fortified compound. The victims included Deputy Oil Minister Abdul Jabar al-Wagaa and three department heads.

Captain Muhammad Ahmad, of the Iraqi army's 3rd Division, said scores of families were obliterated in Tuesday's truck blasts, which wiped out a market and a bus station. Another Iraqi officer described the scene as apocalyptic. "It looks like a nuclear bomb hit the villages," he said.

Like other recent large-scale bombing attacks, this one took place in an area with a relatively small military presence. Since the US sent an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq this year — mainly to bolster security around Baghdad — insurgents have increasingly targeted areas outside military control.

Last month, a bombing near Kirkuk — another northern city that did not receive additional troops — killed about 150 people.

The US military said that al-Qaeda was the prime suspect in the suicide bombings in the Yazidi villages.

The explosions came only hours after Iraqi leaders met in Baghdad for lunch in advance of a "crisis summit" to discuss how to solve sectarian divisions. The gathering, like many before it, produced no results.

Adnan Dulaimi, leader of the largest Sunni bloc, said nothing political was discussed.

NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, REUTERS





















*Credit to the AUSTRALIA AGE

[Woranuch_KaoZ]

The US needs to take all the troops out of Iraq. This war has been prolonged enough, every day another soldier dies, and so another coffin buried. Bush has gone to far with this war, it is becoming like the Vietnam War.

[Sunny]

No one cares if they die or not either, I mean ... it doesn't make that much of a big headline or deals, but when someone dies in US, its all over the news and world for days or weeks, I think its so inhuman because these people in Iraqis die everyday .... in a painful death, just as scary as shootings in school in the US ... its like becoming a normal that many people will die in Iraqis... but when something happens in US, omg everyone is in shock and at sudden state. I think it's not fair.

[Solin]

I was against the war at the beginning because there is no war without victims.
But now I don't really sur stop the war is a so good idea because It mean that so many people die for nothing and I believe that if you begin something you must finished it.
As for the solders who die, I am very sad for their families but lot of people die every day but nobody notice them...