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Ludi Duke
Hospital officials in northwestern Iraq have told TIME that the death
toll from Tuesday's blasts in Qahataniya may exceed 300, making the
multiple suicide bombings the deadliest terrorist operation in the
country since the fall of Saddam Hussein. One hospital is saying that
there are at least 500 bodies and that 375 people are injured. That
report, however, cannot yet be verified. The only previous occasion
when the toll from concerted attacks has exceeded 200 was last
November, when six car-bombs in Baghdad's Sadr City killed 215 people.
If the toll in the Qataniya incident grows, it could become the worst
terrorist incident since al-Qaeda's September 11, 2001 attack on the
U.S. (The Beslan massacre in Russia in September 2004 came to
approximately 330, about half of the total children).
Since then, the massive "surge" of U.S. and Iraqi troops in and around
Baghdad has made the Iraqi capital safer than before from such
bombings - but terrorist groups have stepped up attacks elsewhere.
There have been a number of attacks in northern Iraq, which had
enjoyed a long spell of peace before the start of the "surge."
Tuesday's bombings were also a reminder that even successful U.S.
military operations can have a short shelf life - a sobering thought
for Bush Administration officials and independent analysts who have
recently been talking up the successes of the "surge." After all, the
area around Qahataniya was the scene of a major anti-insurgent
operation barely two years ago. In the fall of 2005, some 8,000
American and Iraqi troops flushed a terrorist group out of the nearby
town of Tal Afar in an operation that was a precursor to the "clear,
hold and build" strategy that underpins the current "surge." A few
months later, President Bush cited Tal Afar as a success story for the
U.S. enterprise in Iraq.
There have been several attacks in and around Tal Afar since then;
last March, two truck bombs killed more than 100 people in a Shi'ite
neighborhood in the town. The bombings in Qahataniya were a deadly
reminder that the terrorists have not gone very far away.
The U.S. military said al-Qaeda was the prime suspect; some Iraqi
government officials fingered Ansar al-Sunnah, which has links to al-
Qaeda and has long been active in northern Iraq. Early reports suggest
the majority of the victims were Yazidis, a pre-Islamic sect in Syria
and northern Iraq.
Throughout history, Yazidis have faced persecution because an
archangel they worship as a representative of God is often identified
by Muslims (and some Christians) as Satan. Branded as devil
worshipers, they are detested by extremists on both sides of Iraq's
sectarian divide.
The Yazidis have their own extremists: earlier this year, members of
the community stoned to death a young woman they accused of converting
to Sunni Islam to marry her lover. A widely distributed video of the
stoning inflamed Sunni sentiments; in retaliation, insurgents executed
23 Yazidi factory workers near Mosul. With reporting by Andrew Lee
Butters
Irish Mike
smarter.
Irish Mike
"Ludi Duke" <i.du...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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John Schutkeker
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> Please post the same message another three times - it makes you seem
> so much smarter.
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