200 killed as suicide attacks rock Iraq

New Delhi: Nearly 200 people are reported dead and over 200 injured in a series of suicide bomb attacks in northern Iraq

The blasts apparently targeted a Kurdish religious minority, the Yazidi sect, near Mosul. At least four blasts hit areas that house the community.

According to agency reports, the suicide bombers drove explosive-laden fuel tankers into compounds in the Kahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair areas in Sinjar, close to the Syrian border.

Rescuers dug through the muddy wreckage of collapsed clay houses on Wednesday, uncovering the victims of the bombings that the US military blamed on al-Qaeda.

Police said separately that five people were killed in an ambush Wednesday on a minibus carrying civilians near Khalis, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, where suspected al-Qaida militants had set up a fake checkpoint. A 5-year-old was among the dead.

In the main northern city of Mosul, a bomb in a parked car killed a civilian and wounded ten others, police and army officers said. A police patrol appeared to have been the target.

South of Baghdad, meanwhile, a suicide car bomber killed two people and wounded seven, Iraqi police said.

Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, the commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, said last month that he proposed reducing American troop levels in Ninevah and predicted the province would shift to Iraqi government control as early as this month. It was unclear whether that projection would hold after Tuesday's staggering death tolls.

Qassim said the four trucks approached the town of Qahataniya, 75 miles west of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, from dirt roads and all exploded within minutes of each other. He said the casualty toll was expected to rise.

''We are still digging with our hands and shovels because we can't use cranes because many of the houses were built of clay,'' Qassim said. ''We are expecting to reach the final death toll tomorrow or day after tomorrow as we are getting only pieces of bodies.''

Tensions have been simmering between the sect and local Muslims since US forces have been pressed into service to help rush the injured to hospitals. The attack was the deadliest in Iraq since 215 people were killed on November 23 in the Shia neighbourhood of Sadr City.

The sect has been under fire since some members stoned a Yazidi teenager to death in April. She had converted to Islam and fled her family with a Muslim boyfriend, and police said 18-year-old Duaa Khalil Aswad was killed by relatives who disapproved of the match.

Tuesday's four suicide truck bombers struck nearly simultaneously, killing more people than any other concerted attack since Nov. 23, when 215 people were killed by mortar fire and five car bombs in Baghdad's Shiite Muslim enclave of Sadr City.

(With inputs from AP and Reuters)