juillet_FR_269_2007:Bull. FR.mars 252.qxd - Institut kurde de Paris

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: religions BAGHDAD: The toll in a horrifie quadruple bombing in an area of mud and stone houses in the remote north¬ ern Iraqi désert has reached 250 dead and 350 wounded, several local offi¬ ciais said Wednesday, making it the single deadliest coordinated attack since the American-led invasion ofIraq in 2003. Rescuers and recbvery teams were still digging through as many as 200 fiattened houses, ànd the death toll could rise, the officiais said. "It is impossible for us to give an ex¬ act figure for the dead and woimded," said Dr. Kifah Kattu, director gênerai the hospital in Sinjar, a few kilometers north of where the explosions occurred, in a Kurdish-speaking area dominated by members of the Yazidi sect, which combines ele- ments of Islam and ancient Persian religions. Hecited one village in the area ofthe explosions. Al Aziz, where he said 40 of the simple homes had been obîiterated and no dead or wounded had yet been recovered. A farmer who survived one of the bomb blasts, Hasson Dalali, 59, said in a hospital in Tal Afar, a town 40 kilome¬ ters, or 25 miles, east of the area of the attacks, that he had lost eight members of his family. "I saw a flash in the sky," Dalali said. "I never saw anything like this before." He said that after two huge explo¬ sions threw him to the ground where he had been working his fields, he rushed to his house to check on his family. "The house was completely fiattened to the ground," Dalali said. "I was looking for any survivor from my family in the rubble. I found only my 12-year-old nephew." The nephew had broken ribs and legs, as well as wounds to thé head, Dalali said. i Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Bastn Ôzeti In taking aim at the guard, the ad¬ ministration is also trying to divide Iran's population. During his news con¬ férence on Aug. 9, Bush addressed the Iranian people directly. "My message to the Iranian people is, 'You can do better than this current government,'" Bush said. ""You don't hâve to be isolated. You don't hâve to be in a position where you can't realize your full économie potential.' " The U.S. government has not made a public estimate of the size of the Revo¬ lutionary Guard, an organization that dates from the Islamic révolution of 1979 and whose branches are believed to extend widely throughout the Irani¬ an military. An estimate by Global- Security.otg, a research group based in Alexandria, Virginia, puts the total guard forces at 125,000. Iraq! toll reaches 250 in coordinated bombings ^lyTEHNATTONAL Mcralo^^teeributtc THE WORLiyS DAILY NEWSTAFER August 16, 2007 Coordinated attack is deadliest of war; 350 are wounded M0&t By James Glanz m:'^^-ii^'m Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters An aerial view ofthe village of (^hatanlya, Iraq, one of two struck in coordinated truck bombings. The attacks targeted members ofthe ^rdish-speaking Yazidi sect. Security officiais said that the dévas¬ tation came when two pairs of truck bombs exploded Tuesday about eight kilometers apart in an area close to the Syrian border in what is known as the Shaam Désert. , An Interior Ministiy officiai in Bagh¬ dad said that précise information on the bombings was particularly difficult to obtain because the road between Sinjar and Tal Afar was partiy controlled by an insurgent group linked to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Islamic State of Iraq, a prime suspect in the bombings. The Islamic State of Iraq distributed leaflets a week ago warning résidents near the scène ofthe bombings that an attack was imminent because Yazidis are "anti-Islamic," The Associated Press reported. The area has long been a focus of insurgent activity, prompting a major Américan-led offensive in 2005 designed to clear the area. Nèvertheless, last March, a twin truck bombing kilied 152 people in Tal Afar, and in July, approximately 155 people died in a single enormous explo¬ sion in the northern town ofAmerli, the largest death toll in a single attack until the bombings on Tuesday. Ail three towns lie north ofthe main areas affected by the increase in Amer¬ ican troop strength that began in March, supporting the notion that, as in ' numerous earlier American offensives, . insiu:gent cells hâve either moved out of places where they were being attacked or affiliated cells hâve been activated in areas unaffected by those offensives. Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, the top American military spokesman in Iraq, said Wednesday that there were improvements in security as a resuit of the troop increase, but he said progress was "graduai and sometimes it is uneven, just as we see a mosaic of uneven conditions in Iraq today." Asked why insurgents would pick simple villages in the désert for such a colossal atiack, Bergner said: "Perhaps their vulnerability. Perhaps they were a target that they could attack." Religious and ethnie minorities hâve been constant targets of violence in Iraq, and the Amerli bombing was aimed at a community of Shiite Turkomans, who remain in the country in ex¬ tremely small numbers. But the tension in Yazidi areas has been particularly high since April, when in a primitive épisode captured on video, Yazidis stoned to death a 23
Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Bastn Ôzeti woman of their own sect for dating a Sunni Arab. After a video ofthe stoning appeared on the Internet, Sunni gunmen stopped minibuses filled with Yazidis and kilied 23 of them. Separately on Wednesday, two car bombs struck a crowded market in a Kurdish area in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, killinjg 5 people and wound¬ ing 30, the police said, according to Reuters. The city has been the scène of power struggles between Sunni Arab résidents and Kurds. Stephen Farrell and employées ofThe New York Times contributed from Tal Afar, Mosul and Baghdad. Petraeus plans a troop eut General David Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, said Wed¬ nesday that he was preparing recommendations on troop cuts before a return to Washington next month for a report to Congress, and that he believed the U.S. footprint in Iraq would hâve to be "a gOod bit smaller" by next summer, The Associated Press reported. But Petraeus cautioned against a quick or significant U.S. withdrawal that could surrender "the gains we hâve fought so hard to achieve." He said the "horrifie and indiscriminate attacks" that kilied at least 250 Yazidis were the work of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and would bolster his argument against too quickly drawing down the 30,000 addi¬ tional American troops deployed in the first half of the year. The gênerai issued his comments to a small group of reporters who accompanied him to the headquarters of a group of former Sunni insurgents who are now working with U.S. and Iraqi forces against insurgents in the Amariya neighborhood of western Baghdad. "We know that the surge has to come to an end; there's no question about that," he said. "I think everyone under¬ stands that by about a year or so from now we've got to be a good bit smaller than we are right now." .s o H O .«g New Iraqi alliance aims to end political standoff But moderate Sunnis refuse to take part By Damien Cave But the impact of the deal seemed limited. The combined number of seats BAGHDAD: Emei^ency workers con- controlled by the four parties involved tinued Thursday to pull bodies from in the agreement still falls short of a the rubble of a quadruple truck bomb¬ clear majority in the 275-member Par¬ ing in two villages near the Syrian bor¬ liament. To pass législation, the group der as the Iraqi prime minister, a Shiite, would need support from one or more and the country's président, a Kurd, an¬ of the religious parties or the main nounced a new alliance of modérâtes Sunni groups. in Parliament. A senior U.S. officiai in Baghdad said Security officiais near Qataniya, that any alliance leaving out Sunnis where the explosions kilied at least 250 would lack the credibility needed for people Tuesday night, said the Iraqi real reconciliation among the coun¬ government was planning to pay 2 mil¬ try's three main factions: Shiites, Sun¬ lion dinars, or about $1,600, to the fam¬ nis and Kurds. ily of each person kilied in the blasts. Talabani said the Iraqi Islamic Party, Kurdish troops arrived on Thursday to the largest of three Sunni parties with¬ help secure the area, which is dominated in the Iraqi Accordance Front, also was by the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi sect, as invited to join the alliance, but de¬ the counting ofbodies continued. clined. The final death toll remained uncer- "They are blessing this agreement," tain. Dakhil Qassim, the mayor of the Talabani said, trying to sound optimis- nearby town of Sinjar, told reporters tic, "and hoping we can find a way to that as many as 500 people could be solve the political problems and then dead. Brigadier General Khorsheed they will be with us." Saleem al-Dosaki, commander of the Some Sunni leaders responded with Iraqi Army division in the area, said 250 continued défiance. Omar Abd al- remained a more reasonable estimate. Satar, a member of the Iraqi Islamic In Baghdad, Prime Minister Nuri Party, dismissed the agreement as an Kamal al-Maliki and Président Jalal effort to formalize the status quo. He Iklabani said their newly signed agree¬ said it would not be enough to bring ment could revive government activity back the Iraqi Accordance Front, the after weeks of deadlock because of a largest Sunni group in Parliament, boycott of government by the leading which puUed its six ministers from the Sunni bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front cabinet at the beginning ofthe month. The move appeared aimed at dis- "This agreement remains loyal to playing an example of political agree¬ the existing reality and will not save ment across sectarian and ethnie lines the country from its crisis," he said. while isolating the more religious For now, the Sunnis seem focused on parties, including the Shiite party loyal building unity among their own. to Moktada al-Sadr. Adnan al-Dulaimi, the leader of the Iraqi Accordance Front, spent the day in Anbar Province meeting with Sunni tribal leaders who hâve recently started working with U.S. troops to fi^t Sunni extremists. The tribal groups, known as the An¬ bar Salvation Council, hâve emerged as a potential rival to Dulaimi's party, and the meeting appeared to be an effort to smooth over their différences and cre¬ ate a unified Sunni front. Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, a council founder, said after the meeting tiiat the tribes had agreed not to seek the Accordance Front's seats in Maliki's cabinet, but he also called on the Simni leaders in Baghdad to change course. Intrasectarian rivalries also festered Thursday in the Shiite-dominated south, where militias loyal to the Sadr organization and the Suprême Islamic Iraqi Council, along with fighters from the Fadhila Party, hâve been battling for control. Fadhila supporters buried the leader of their office in Diwaniya, the capital ofQadisiya Province, after he was shot and kilied Wednesday by unknown gunmen. And new détails emerged about the kidnapping of the deputy oil minister and several other department heads on Tuesday from a guarded residential compound in eastern Baghdad. The oil minister, Hussein Sharistani, said the assault was even more coordinated than previously thought. He said the attackers spoke English and talked their way past guards hired to protect the compound. None of the abducted officiais hâve yet been found. Ali Fahim, Ali Adeeb and Karim Hilmî contributed reporting from Baghdad; Iraqi employées ofThe New York Times contributed reporting from Diwaniya, Mosul and Ramadi. 24
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