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BAGHDAD - Iraqi officials say the death toll from the attack by multiple suicide bombers has reached 250.
The BBC has reported that the attack in the northern province of Nineveh was carried out by four bombers driving fuel tankers.
The town of Kahtaniya in the Sinjar district
has rarely competed for headline space in Iraq's four-year-old war. But yesterday's attack, blamed on al Qaeda, highlighted the lengths militant groups will go to tear apart an already divided nation.
The attacks targeted houses of the Yazidi, a 350,000-strong secretive community whose beliefs are a mixture of Zotroastrian and Manichean predating Islam and Christianity.
There were scenes of chaos on the streets as residents fled the attacks, while hospital corridors overflowed with the wounded.
The death toll was the highest in Iraq since mortar fire and car bombs killed 215 people in Sadr City, the impoverished Shiite suburb of Baghdad, last November.
One source said that there were two explosions in an area of dense housing in Sinjar which then "came under a mortar attack following the double explosion".
It is not clear why the Yazidi should have been singled out for the coordinated assault. They are also ethnic Kurds who speak Kurdish which would also make them a target, while the public lynching of a Yazidi girl who converted to Islam in order to marry her Muslim Kurdish boyfriend led to sectarian strife earlier this year. Gunmen then took 23 Yazidi textile workers from a bus near Mosul and shot them dead after telling non-Yazidi workers to go home.
At least thirty houses were destroyed in yesterday's attacks, the worst of which took place Siba Sheikh Kidar housing compound west of Mosul. Two more explosions took place in the Kar Izir area two miles to the south.
A local source said that "people are in a panic while hospitals are still rushing people to Sinjar hospital"
Dhakil Qassim, the mayor of Sinjar said that al Qaeda in Iraq were behind the bombings citing Kurdish government intelligence reports.
The Sinjar area is largely under Kurdish control and is claimed as part of the historic Kurdish homeland from which Saddam Hussein sought to drive them.
"This is a terrorist act and the people targeted are poor Yazidis who have nothing to do with the armed conflict," Qassim said. "Al Qaeda fighters are very active in this area near the Syrian border."
Ghassan Salim, 40, a teacher, said: "We went to the hospital and the wounded told us about the attacks. I gave blood. I saw many maimed people with no legs or arms. Many were left in the hospital garage or in the streets because the hospital is too small."
The attacks on the Yazidis were the culmination of a day of violence during which a US helicopter crashed west of Baghdad killing five crew.
In Baghdad, 50 gunmen in Iraqi security force uniforms and using 17 official vehicles calmly kidnapped a Deputy Oil Minister from the State Oil Marketing Organisation. A further three director generals at the ministry were abducted.
A crucial bridge was destroyed when a suicide bomber driving a fuel truck blew himself up while crossing it. The explosion, which killed 10 people and wounded six, took place at Taji, just north of Baghdad. Insurgents have recently targeted bridges in and around the capital.
There is also an escalating conflict between the US military and the main Shiite militia, the Mehdi Army. The US has been seeking to put al Qaeda under enough pressure to prevent the use of massive suicide bombs against Shiite civilian areas - producing a rash of revenge killings of Sunni.
Some 15 bodies were found in Baghdad yesterday and a further 15 Sunni were dumped near a petrol station in Khalis, a largely Shiite town in embattled Diyala province.
THE YAZIDI: WHO ARE THEY?
The Yazidi are an ancient sect that predates Christianity and Islam. There are believed to be about 350,000 Yazidis, mainly ethnic Kurds.
Many live near Mosul, but they are also found in Iran, Armenia, Georgia, Syria, Turkey and Russia.
Their origins are lost in ancient history, but the word has been translated as "divine" and "god".
They believe in a creator god and that seven angels look after the world, the leader of which is a peacock-angel. Some Muslims and Christians say Yazidis worship a "fallen angel", but the religion believes the peacock to be a source of good.
The Yazidi minority in Iraq say they have often faced discrimination. In April gunmen shot dead 23 factory workers from the sect in Mosul.
WHY WERE THEY TARGETED?
It is not clear why the Yazidi should have been singled out for the co-ordinated assault though their non-Islamic beliefs would be enough to lead an attack by al Qaeda in Iraq.
They are also ethnic Kurds who speak Kurdish, which would also make them a target.
The public lynching of a Yazidi girl who converted to Islam in order to marry her Muslim Kurdish boyfriend led sectarian strife earlier this year.
WHO IS BEHIND THE ATTACK?
Dhakil Qassim, the mayor of Sinjar, said that al Qaeda in Iraq were behind the bombings, citing Kurdish government intelligence reports.
Officials fear that with US troops concentrating their military effort in the capital, insurgents are moving into new areas where they can attack so-called soft targets.
- Independent
Day of devastation across nation
BAGHDAD
* Fifteen bodies found around city.
* Mortar attack kills two people and wounds four in Ur district.
* US soldier killed and three wounded during combat operations.
* US military says troops killed four members of Mehdi Army and detained eight others during raid in Sadr City. Hospital says 5-year-old girl and her father among three people shot dead in the incident.
* US forces detain 16 suspected insurgents during operations targeting foreign fighters.
MOSUL
* Four suicide bombers driving fuel tankers attack members of Yazidi sect west of Mosul, killing at least 200 people.
* Iraqi and US forces free six hostages, bound and blindfolded for more than two weeks, from suspected al Qaeda prison.
* HILLA Gunmen kill a guard and wound two others in a drive-by attack on a police patrol.
KHALIS
* Bodies of 15 Sunni Arab men found shot and dumped near petrol station.
TAJI
* Ten people killed and six wounded when suicide bomber blows up fuel tanker, causing bridge to collapse.
FALLUJA
* US helicopter crashed on routine flight, killing five service members.
KIRKUK
* Roadside bomb wounds two policemen and civilian.
- Reuters
