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Iraq

Massive Attack on Yazidis Kills nearly 200

Juan Cole 08/14/2007

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The BBC says that Ninevah Province police are reporting that three car bombs targeted a Yazidi village in northern Iraq near Sinjar not far from the Syria border. One of them was a fuel truck. The bombings destroyed buildings and 175 are now being reported dead, with 200 wounded. The death toll is expected to rise.

Yazidis were targeted by Sunni gunmen last April, in part because of a clan feud sparked by a Juliet and Romeo star-crossed romance between a Yazidi young woman and a Sunni man.

This massive bombing is likely to be the work of the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement, which has been blocked from carrying out such destabilizing operations in Baghdad itself by Gen. Petraeus’s efforts. The point is to spread generalized fear. It may be that Salafi Jihadis are also especially targeting non-Sunni populations in the north, since that has the double value to them of also punishing lack of orthodoxy.

Filed Under: Iraq

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

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