Simultaneous truck attacks on Kurdish minority leave 500 dead

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One of the victims of attacks in Iraq. Photo: EFE

Rescuers dug through the muddy wreckage of collapsed clay houses in northwest Iraq on Wednesday, uncovering at least 500 bodies from suicide truck bombings the U.S. military blamed on al-Qaida, making it the deadliest attack since the war began.

The victims of the attack were members of the Yazidis, a small Kurdish sect that has been the target of Muslim extremists who label it blasphemous.

Four suicide truck bombers struck nearly simultaneously on Tuesday, causing buildings to crumble and trapping entire families underneath the wreckage.

Casualty toll rose to at least 500 killed and 350 wounded as bodies were pulled from the rubble. That surpassed the previous deadliest attack of the war when 215 people were killed by mortar fire and five car bombs in Baghdad's Shiite Muslim enclave of Sadr City on 23 November.

US officials believe extremists are attempting to regroup across northern Iraq after being driven from strongholds in and around Baghdad and commanders have warned they expected Sunni insurgents to step up attacks in a bid to upstage the report.

Dakhil Qassim, the mayor of the nearby town of Sinjar said four trucks approached the town of Qahataniya, 120 kilometres (75 miles) west of Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, from dirt roads and all exploded within minutes of each other.

US military spokesman Brigadier General Kevin Bergner said on Wednesday that he believed the bombings were the work of al-Qaida in Iraq.

At least nine killed in Baghdad central square car bombing

On Thursday a car bomb struck a market district during rush hour in central Baghdad, killing at least nine people and wounding 17, police said.

The car was parked in a lot above a row of stores near the busy Rusafi square when it exploded at about 9 a.m. (0600 GMT), a police officer said, giving the casualty toll on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to release the information.

A huge fire broke out in a seven-story building next to the site of the attack.

The blast occurred in an area full of food vendors, as well as stores selling clothes, leather bags and shoes.

Those injured in the blast were taken to the al-Kindi hospital in the Nahda neighbourhood for treatment.

The same area has been targeted several times by car bombs, claiming dozens of lives and damaging properties.