Iraq still on fire by Claudia Sonea

Late Tuesday four suicide bombers struck nearly simultaneously in northwestern Iraq killing at least 175 people and wounding 200 more, according to Iraqi military and local officials. It was an attack against Yazidis, a small Kurdish sect considered infidel by some Muslims. The blame for the recent actions against this sect falls on a Yazidis family that stoned to death their 18 years old daughter, 18-year-old Duaa Khalil Aswad, who run away from home with her Muslim boyfriend and converted to Islam. The Islamic State in Iraq, an al-Qaida front group, warned one week before about the gruesome attack through distributed leaflets. After sundown near Qahataniya, 75 miles west of Mosul around which is the center of the Yazidi faith, four trucks approached the city and exploded within minutes of each other. The police stated that at least one of the trucks was an explosives-laden fuel tanker. Shops were set ablaze and flats crumbled because of the explosions; the victims' number is supposed to rise. Despite the fact that there was no claim of responsibility, the attack bore the hallmark of al-Qaida, regrouping in Anbar and Diyala provinces. Dhakil Qassim, mayor in the town of SInjar, a city close by the attacks, blamed the terrorist and said that Yazidis community has nothing to do with the armed conflict. This was another humiliation for the US army, the attack coming after the brazen daylight raid on the Oil Ministry complex when Dozens of gunmen wearing security force uniforms abducted a deputy oil minister, Al-Wagaa and four other officials. In a similar raid on Iraq's Finance Ministry five Britons were kidnapped. The crime scenes are near the stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Sadr City. Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman stated in Washington that they are expecting the attacks to increase during this situation. 3,700 US militaries have been killed and the situation is still unsolved. How long it will take for the situation to calm down, no one really knows. Innocent people continue to be victims of the religious prejudices and of an unfair war. Surf on and keep your eyes on the news, there is much more to come.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070814/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AhsPtSazULasVgJy97QDrVes0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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Edited by Zuzana Tylkova