[Vision2020] Death Toll Rises to 400-500 in NW Iraq

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Good Morning Visionaries:

More tragic news from Iraq.  This part of the country was supposed to be pacificed by the famous Gen. Petreus.  Again, why are we there and what are we doing except for losing precious American lives and treasure.

Iraq bombs death toll rises to 400

Fred Attewill and agencies
Thursday August 16, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

	Iraqi President Jalal Talabani confirms that more than 50 bodies pulled from the Tigris river were those of hostages missing in the area

The death toll from Tuesday's huge suicide bombings in north-western Iraq has risen to at least 400, according to a government spokesman.

More victims of the attacks - the bloodiest atrocity since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003 - have been pulled from neighbourhoods of collapsed mud homes.

The areas were destroyed when suspected Islamist extremists targeted members of the Yezidis, a Kurdish-speaking pre-Muslim sect, in Nineveh province.

"Their aim is to annihilate us, to create trouble and kill all the Yezidis because we are not Muslims," Abu Saeed, a resident of one of the devastated areas, told Reuters.

Mr Saeed told the deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, who made a short tour of the devastated neighbourhood, that 51 members of his extended family had been killed.

Around 100 angry Yezidi men gathered as Mr Salih met local officials. "It's like a nuclear site, the site of a nuclear bomb," Mr Salih, a Kurd, told Reuters.

Suicide bombers detonated explosives rigged to fuel tankers in three remote Yezidi villages. A spokesman for the interior ministry today said two tonnes of explosives had been used in the blasts.

Earlier, local officials had said as many as 500 people had been killed, adding that rescuers were still looking for bodies.

The commander of US forces in northern Iraq, Major General Benjamin Mixon, described the attack as "ethnic cleansing". It remained unclear whether US plans to reduce troops levels in Nineveh would go ahead. 

Rest of article deleted