Death toll soars to 175 in Iraq suicide bombings

[brooklynite]

Source: AP

BREAKING NEWS

BAGHDAD - At least 175 people were killed and 200 were injured in four suicide bombings targeting an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq, the Iraqi army reported Tuesday.

Elsewhere, an American transport helicopter crashed near an air base in Anbar, killing five U.S. servicemembers. Four more U.S. soldiers were reported killed in separate attacks — three in an explosion near their vehicle Monday in the northwestern Ninevah province and another who died of wounds from combat in western Baghdad.

In a separate attack, a fifth suicide truck bomber struck a strategic bridge on the main highway linking Baghdad with the northern city of Mosul, killing at least 10, police said. The span was bombed three months ago and only one lane had reopened, according to the police officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20250066/

[AndyA]

1. And just when Americans were beginning to love the Iraq war again...

:(

I saw a story this morning that said the approval of the Iraq war was showing an increase, as more and more Americans felt the surge was working.

How do you feel now, America?

We need our troops home, and Bush/Cheney OUT of the White House!

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. Perspective: 168 were killed in the Oklahoma City bombing

The Iraqis have the equivalent of an Oklahoma City bombing every couple of weeks, with about 10-15 smaller bombings in between.

[Blue_Tires]

30. sobering truth n/t

[David__77]

34. And in a country with a much smaller population.

Iraq is more like California. All of this horrific violence concentrated in that smaller region/population.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. the success of the surge.

I can't wait for the GOp spinners. Then again, yes, I can.

we can be sure they will blame Iran.

[Doctor_J]

16. No, they'll blame the Democrat Congress

they've stopped trying to win the war and begun trying to win the election next year. By this time next year you'll think Barrack Hussein Obama "gassed his own people". Tweety will be wondering how anyone could NOT vote for the manly man willard Romney.

[catgirl]

25. Oh, but Baghdad wasn't hit

Huff Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070814/iraq/

Baghdad was spared major violence in another sign that a six-month-old security crackdown in the capital is disrupting extremists' firepower. But the brazen daylight raid on the Oil Ministry complex showed that armed gangs can still embarrass authorities.


As long as Baghdad is spared!

[Mz Pip]

4. So this is proof of how

the military solution is working in Iraq, uh, how exactly???

Whack-a-mole is not a military strategy. It's a toy for 2 year olds.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[intaglio]

11. Now that line would be a nice bumper sticker

Wack-a-mole is not a military strategy. It's a toy for 2 year olds.

[Mz Pip]

14. I did an edit

It's spelled "Whack" LOL

Thanks!

Mz Pip
:dem:

[TwilightGardener]

5. Bad news. What the hell is it going to take to stop these people from killing each other?

[msmcghee]

13. It will stop when the US leaves and . .

. . the next Saddam Hussein takes control . . just like the last one did. Except the next one will be a theocratic despot instead of a secular despot.

[lonestarnot]

20. US ending the occupation and getting the fuck out!

[tabasco]

21. Another "surge" oughta take care of it!!

www.goarmy.com

[Prophet 451]

6. 'Scores die' in Iraq bomb attacks

Source: BBC News

At least 175 people have been killed in a series of suicide bomb attacks in northern Iraq, Iraq's military says.
The blasts apparently targeted a Kurdish religious minority, the Yazidi sect, near Mosul. At least four blasts hit areas which house the community.

A Mosul police source told the BBC that there had been "large loss of life".

Tensions between the sect and local Muslims have grown since a Yazidi girl was reportedly stoned by her community in April for converting to Islam.


Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6946028.stm

---

Go on, tell me again how the surge is working...

[BushOut06]

7. So, how's that surge going, rethugs?

Let me guess - we just need a few more thousand troops, right?

[NanceGreggs]

8. Yuppers!

A few more thousand troops, and a few more trillion dollars - that'll do the trick!

[Magleetis]

9. We just don't understand

You see, this bombing is proof that the surge is working.

[MADem]

10. Gee, let the HOLY WAR begin!!! Start by clearing out all those pesky minority religions!!!

There's not a lot of love between the Muslim communities and the Yazidi. Never has been--example:

http://www.kurdishaspect.com/doc050207KD.html


Reprisal attacks by Muslims on Yazidi workers in Erbil and elsewhere ratchet up the consequences of the stoning death of a young Yazidi girl.

A Yazidi girl's death by stoning because of her love for a Muslim boy has resulted in mounting tensions in the Yazidi areas of Bashiqa town and Bhazani village northeast of Mosul. Yazidi religious authorities have formally and publicly condemned the killing.

Du'a, the victim, was a 17-year-old Yazidi girl from Bahzani village. Dozens of members of her community stoned her to death in late April after her relationship with a Muslim boy was discovered.
Yazidis are Kurds who live mainly in Duhok and Mosul provinces and have adopted the religion of Yazidism, which combines Islamic teachings with Zoroastrianism.

An official source from Bashiqa who requested anonymity said that after testimony from both Du'a and the Muslim boy's side, investigators could not say with certainty whether the girl intended to become a Muslim. The boy is now under arrest pending the outcome of the investigation.

After Du'a's relationship was discovered, her relatives threatened her. She took shelter, but someone in the area turned her over to Suleman Qawali, president of Qawalis, a Yazidi religious sector in Bahzani.

"The stoning occurred the next day when a number of youths and extremists intent on causing trouble between Yazidis and Muslims surrounded the house," said Abdul-Aziz, son of Suleman Qawali, explaining how the girl was taken from his father's custody. He said the mob gathered in front of his father's house, ultimately forcing the senior Qawali to surrender the girl to her relatives. Abdul-Aziz said her relatives and members of her community killed her with stones in front of the crowd amid furious shouting; people dared not interfere after seeing authorities take no action to stop the killing.

[SpiralHawk]

12. "Oh yeah, too bad about all the dead and stuff." - Commander AWOL

"But its time for my record-setting vacation to continue at the Imperial Pig Farm Upon Crawford, so please don't bother me with these itty bits of liberal- fact-based news again."

- Commander AWOL

[LuckyLib]

15. One day among a thousand in the Iraq Debacle. Iraq is approximately the size of the

California (168,700 square miles) with a population somewhat higher than that of Texas (26 million)(though after four years of "liberation", the numbers have been significantly reduced). These poor folks. Hell rains down on them on a daily basis.:nuke:

[Doctor_J]

17. yes, roughly one out of every 30 Iraqis has been killed since the invasion began

Or, another way, 30 times as many people as were killed on 9/11/01

[Hawaii Hiker]

18. NYT is saying at least 190 dead

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/15/world/middleeast/15cnd-iraq.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

This adminstration thinks when less than 50 people get murdered every day, they're making progress....

Iraq is in absolute chaos & this administration still tries to paint a pretty picture...Fucking pathetic..

[Arugula Latte]

19. But ... But ... William Kristol assured me the surge was working

last night on the Daily Show. He said we should trust the president and the neocons on that one. He couldn't have been wrong, could he? :cry:

[llmart]

22. I heard a blurb on one of the TV nightly news programs.....

that said the military was claiming this was an inflated number. I'll bet according to our military it was only one or two dead. I'm VietNam generation and I haven't believed the damned military commanders once since then.

[environmentalist]

23. This attack was on a specific sect of Kurds

The coordinated attacks were on the Yazidi, a minority sect of Kurds who have been a target of both the Sunni and Shi'a for a long time. Best guess is that it's a way to try to pull the Kurds into the fight from behind their Peshmerga guarded lines in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Here's a link to a post about them.


Posted by The Environmentalist

[Teaser]

27. Yezidis

because they worship Shaitan (in their mythology, Satan never "fell") they are considered anathema to many muslims.

[environmentalist]

29. That's not quite accurate

From the link I provided:

In the Yazidi worldview, God created the world, which is now in the care of a Heptad of seven Holy Beings, often known as Angels or heft sirr (the Seven Mysteries). Pre-eminent among these is Melek Taus (Tawûsê Melek in Kurdish), the Peacock Angel, who is equated with Satan or Devil by some Muslims and Christians. The reason for the Yazidis reputation of being devil worshipers, is connected to the other name of Melek Taus, Shaytan, the same name as the Koran's for Satan. However, according to the Kurdish linguist Jamal Nebez, the word Taus is most probably derived from the Greek and is related to the words Zeus and Theos, alluding to the meaning of God.

The Satan-worshiper meme is incorrect. It's 7th century propaganda from the enemies of 6th Caliph who were told the Yazidis were allied to the Caliph when they didn't even know him.

The Yazidi are being killed because of hate propaganda and in an effort to draw the Barzani Kurds (KDP) into the fight. That's what this is about and it's a tragedy.


Posted by The Environmentalist

[Teaser]

42. It's quite accurate

There isn't anything in that quote that doesn't accord with what I said.

They aren't Satan worshippers, they are Shaitan worshippers.

Yezidism was assembled out of a mishmash of beliefs endemic to the area and one of those strands of belief was of an angel named Shaitan. Initially, in the Old Testament, when "satan" "HASSHATAN", the "accuser" was mentioned, he was not an enemy of god, but a divine functionary. It's certain that some of the inhabitants of Yezd ran across this myth and syncretized it with their own mythology.

And Shaytan, in Yezidi mtyhology, was offered the opportunity to fall, same as Shaitan in Islam. He was ordered to bow before God's new creation, man. He refused, perhaps not out of pride, but out of the knowledge that only God should receive the worship of a being like himself. And Shaytan/Melek Taus was rewarded for this by being appointed a sort of proxy god himself, head of the sacred heptad of angels (corresponding, in some sense to gnostic archons, but not nearly so malevolent). In this position, Shaytan can be seen as a sort of benevolent Demiurge.

[travelingtypist]

31. That's what I was thinking.

it's a way to try to pull the Kurds into the fight
from behind their Peshmerga guarded lines in Iraqi
Kurdistan.

Except I was thinking the Turks might want to stir up
trouble so that the Kurds can stop thinking about being
an independent country.

[HughMoran]

24. This is one heck of a massacre

I was kind of surprised that I had to search around for a post about this.

Horrific. :(

[deutsey]

26. Things are going smashingly well...

:evilfrown:

[kimsterdemster]

28. would that make it...

1,000,175 :cry: :shrug: :grr: :argh: :banghead:


The Iraqi people are HUMAN BEINGS, I'm so sick of this shit, STOP this endless WAR NOW!!!

[Cobalt Violet]

32. What a terrible price to pay for being "anti-Islamic".

;(

[DU GrovelBot]

33. ## PLEASE DONATE TO DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND! ##

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[Chango]

35. Make that 250 dead

eom

[HughMoran]

36. Deadliest attack of the war

DU - bah! we're over that war thing.

[varun]

37. CNN just said 500 dead!

WTF?

[HughMoran]

38. Worst MASSACRE in the entire war!!!!!!

Why would DUers show any concern?

38 replies?

WTF?

[defendandprotect]

39. LOOKS LIKE A 'NEW TET OFFENSIVE' IN IRAQ . . . !!!!! 500 DEAD!!!! No wonder Petraeus wants out --!

He made very clear -- "smaller footprint for America in Iraq" --

On Keith Olbermann tonight a male "commentator" was suggesting an INCREASE in troops by Petraeus --
and his version was that the increase was based on P wanting to move troops around -- not cut them!!!

Odd things like this happen on Keith Olbermann every now and then -- ??? !!!!

And Keith offered no correction --

[InkAddict]

40. Will this horror never end?

I got an e-mail from a co-worker, a Mom whose son is serving in Iraq. He knew she would hear of these and worry, so he called just at quitting time yesterday to say he was o-kay. But, how o-kay can he be driving a Hummer down the road with this never-ending carnage? I wept and prayed, and it was good that everyone else was at lunch. Later, my supe asked if I had read her e-mail message and we tip-toed cautiously around what it's doing to our sons and daughers, to our country. This madness/sadness is just too powerful. She's gonna get a :grouphug: tomorrow. Heck, we could all use one!

[rocktivity]

41. The offical death toll, you mean?

Earlier in the day, the US military said it was around 60, "local" reports say it's closer to 500.

:eyes:
rocknation