Toll Rises to 250 in Iraq Blasts

Deadliest terror attack since fall of Hussein

(NEWSER) - The death toll from Tuesday's series of suicide truck bombings in northern Iraq may exceed 500, with scores more lying injured in hospitals, CNN reports. The attacks were reportedly launched by al-Qaeda against the Yazidi, a pre-Islamic sect, spotlighting the religious warfare that US troop surge sought to quell. More»

Attack comes after bold kidnapping of oil ministers

(NEWSER) - US helicopters are swooping down to rescue survivors of bomb attacks that butchered at least 120 villagers in northern Iraq today. CNN reports that at least three trucks detonated in residential areas and injured upwards of 150 people, mostly Kurds. TV stations are beseeching townspeople to donate blood as US troops help out victims on the ground. More»

VP urges Maliki to strengthen coalition with Kurds, Sunnis

(NEWSER) - Joe Biden called Iraqi officials today, urging them to calm rising sectarian tensions after a bombing killed at least 63 people there earlier this week, the AP reports. Biden and other US officials have been phoning Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as well as Sunni and Kurdish leaders all week, asking them to "stop hurling accusations at each other through the media and actually sit together and work through your competing concerns,” a White House official tells the New York Times . More»

Victims were members of anti-Qaeda Awakening Councils

(AP) - Gunmen wearing Iraqi military uniforms raided homes in a Sunni village south of Baghdad, killing at least 24 people, including five women, in execution-style attacks. Many of the dead were members of local Sahwa, or Awakening Councils—one of several names for the Sunni fighters who changed the course of the war when they revolted against al-Qaeda in Iraq and joined the Americans in late 2006 and 2007. More»

(NEWSER) - Iraq was rocked by two deadly, possibly destabilizing bombings this weekend, but the proof is in the reprisals, Larry Kaplow writes in Newsweek—and there were none. “Iraq today is a different place than it was when ethnic conflict threatened to engulf the country in 2006,” Kaplow continues. “The powder here is wetter than it once was.” And that’s due mostly to Shiite military power and restraint in the face of Sunni attacks. More»