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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (113096)	8/16/2007 12:29:53 PM
From: SamIAmmie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 360876

Toll from bloodiest attack of Iraq war rises to at least 250 Baghdad, Aug 16: A day after the deadliest attack the Iraq war, rescuers used bare hands and shovels to claw through clay houses shattered by an onslaught of suicide bombings that killed at least 250 and possibly as many as 500 members of an ancient religious sect. The US military yesterday blamed al-Qaeda in Iraq, and an American commander called the assault an "act of ethnic cleansing." The victims of Tuesday night's coordinated attack by four suicide bombers were Yazidis, a small Kurdish-speaking sect that has been targeted by Muslim extremists who consider its members to be blasphemers. The blasts in two villages near the Syrian border crumbled buildings, trapping entire families beneath mud bricks and other wreckage. Entire neighbourhoods were flattened. "This is an act of ethnic cleansing, if you will, almost genocide," Army Maj Gen Benjamin Mixon, commander of US forces in northern Iraq, said. He said that was evident from the fact Yazidis live in a remote part of Ninevah province that has been far from Iraq's conflict. Mixon said last month that he proposed reducing American troop levels in Ninevah and predicted the province would shift to Iraqi government control as early as this month. It was unclear whether that projection would hold after Tuesday's staggering casualties. Death estimates ranged widely. Zayan Othman, Health Minister for Iraq's nearby autonomous Kurdish region, said 250 bodies had been pulled from the rubble and some 350 people were injured. But the death toll was put as high as 500 by some local officials, including Hashim al-Hamadani, a senior provincial security official; Kifah Mohammed, Director of Sinjar hospital; and Iraqi Army Capt Mohammed Ahmed. They agreed with Othman that about 350 were wounded. None of the officials provided information on how they arrived at their estimates. The figures could not be independently checked because the area was under curfew and casualties had been taken to numerous hospitals. Even the lower death estimate far surpassed the previous bloodiest attack of the war - 215 people killed by mortar fire and five car bombs in Baghdad's Shiite Muslim enclave of Sadr City last November 23. US officials believe insurgents have been regrouping across northern Iraq after being driven from strongholds in and around Baghdad, and the bombings coincided with the start of a major offensive by American and Iraqi troops against militants in the Diyala River Valley. The carnage dealt a serious blow to the Bush administrations hopes of presenting a positive picture in a progress report on Iraq to be delivered by the top US commander, Gen David Petraeus, and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker in about four weeks. Petraeus warned that he expected Sunni Arab insurgents to stage more spectacular attacks ahead of the report to Congress, whose members are deeply divided over whether to begin withdrawing US troops from Iraq. "This is way out by the Syrian border, an area where we do think in fact some suicide bombers are able to come across the border. zeenews.com