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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2009
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Toll Rises to 250 in Iraq Blasts

Massive attacks against Kurds suggest spreading insurgency

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(Newser) – Officials pushed the death toll of attacks on two Iraqi towns up to 250 today, as rescuers located more victims amid rubble. “It looks like a nuclear bomb hit the villages,” an officer told the New York Times of yesterday's blasts in an area populated by a Kurdish sect often targeted by militant Sunni Muslims.

The attacks came on one of the bloodiest days in recent months, as bombs detonated across the country and a helicopter crash left five Americans dead. As Iraqi politicians prepared for a "crisis summit," gunmen kidnapped oil-ministry officials from their homes, a move the oil minister said was designed to disrupt government work and upend political progress.

a primarily Kurdish sect that worships an angel figure considered to be the devil by some Muslims and Christians, have been the frequent target of violence in northern Iraq. A Sunni tribal leader in Kirkuk said gunmen distributed fliers saying that the killing of the two Yazidi men was in...
a primarily Kurdish sect that worships an angel figure considered to be the devil by some Muslims and Christians, have been the frequent target of violence in northern Iraq. A Sunni tribal leader in Kirkuk...   (Associated Press)
A Yazidi girl stands on Mount Sinjar, 250 miles, 404 kilometers, northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Sept. 19, 2005. Yazidis are predominantly ethnic Kurds whose religion blends elements of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Small communities of Yazidis can be found in Syria, Turkey, Georgia and Armenia, but the majority of...
A Yazidi girl stands on Mount Sinjar, 250 miles, 404 kilometers, northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Sept. 19, 2005. Yazidis are predominantly ethnic Kurds whose religion blends elements of Zoroastrianism, Judaism,...   (Associated Press)
Men dig through rubble to search for survivors and dead on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007, after a coordinated suicide attack late Tuesday, in the town late of Qahataniya, 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Mosul, Iraq. Rescuers dug through the muddy wreckage of collapsed clay houses in northwest Iraq on...
Men dig through rubble to search for survivors and dead on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007, after a coordinated suicide attack late Tuesday, in the town late of Qahataniya, 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of...   (Associated Press)
A dead victim is carried from the rubble on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007, after a coordinated suicide attack late Tuesday, in the town late of Qahataniya, 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Mosul, Iraq. Rescuers dug through the muddy wreckage of collapsed clay houses in northwest Iraq on Wednesday, uncovering...
A dead victim is carried from the rubble on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007, after a coordinated suicide attack late Tuesday, in the town late of Qahataniya, 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Mosul, Iraq....   (Associated Press)
An elderly Yazidi man smokes a traditional pipe in Karse village on Mount Sinjar, 250 miles, 404 kilometers, northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Sept. 19, 2005. Yazidis are predominantly ethnic Kurds whose religion blends elements of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Small communities of Yazidis can be found in Syria, Turkey,...
An elderly Yazidi man smokes a traditional pipe in Karse village on Mount Sinjar, 250 miles, 404 kilometers, northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Sept. 19, 2005. Yazidis are predominantly ethnic Kurds whose religion...   (Associated Press)
Iraqi morgue workers prepare to unload the body of one of two Yazidi men who had been stoned to death after they turned up at a morgue in the northern city of Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2007, six days after they...
Iraqi morgue workers prepare to unload the body of one of two Yazidi men who had been stoned to death after they turned up at a morgue in the northern city of Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north...   (Associated Press)
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