[NYTr] 175 Killed in N.Iraq Bombs; US "New Offensive," Allawi Wants "New Govt"

Tue Aug 14 19:11:08 EDT 2007

[Only a small sample of today's Iraq Follies. Lots of blood, lots of
bullshit. Nothing changes except to become a little worse every day.
-NYTr]

Reuters - Aug 14, 2007 5:59 PM EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1484109720070814

At least 175 killed in north Iraq bombings: army

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 175 people were killed when three suicide
bombers driving fuel tankers attacked residential compounds home to the
ancient minority Yazidi sect in northern Iraq on Tuesday, an Iraqi army
captain said.

Captain Mohammad al-Jaad said at least another 200 people were wounded
in the bombings in the Kahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair areas near
the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, close to the Syrian border.

The mayor of Sinjar, Dakheel Qassim Hasoun, gave the same casualty
figures and said U.S. aircraft were helping to ferry the wounded to
hospitals.

Yazidis are members of a pre-Islamic Kurdish sect and live in northern
Iraq and Syria.

Yazidis in Iraq say they have often faced discrimination. In April
gunmen shot dead 23 factory workers from the sect in the northern city
of Mosul.

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved

                               ***

earlier story on the USA's "major new offensive" updated with the
175 dead in bombings:

Reuters - Aug 14, 2007 6:14 PM EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSL14244086._CH_.2400

Northwestern Iraq bombings kill 175 - army

Tue Aug 14, 2007 6:14PM EDT
(Recasts with northwestern bombings)

By Paul Tait

BAGHDAD, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Suicide bombers driving fuel tankers killed
at least 175 people in apparently coordinated attacks in northwestern
Iraq on Tuesday, the Iraqi army said, in one of the worst incidents of
its kind in the four-year-old war.

Iraqi army captain Mohammad al-Jaad said at least another 200 people
were wounded in the bombings in Yazidi residential compounds in the
Kahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair areas near the northern Iraqi town
of Sinjar, close to the Syrian border.

The mayor of Sinjar, Dakheel Qassim Hasoun, gave the same casualty
figures.

Police earlier said Tuesday's bombings appeared to target the Yazidis,
members of a pre-Islamic Kurdish sect who live in northern Iraq and
Syria.

The United States has sent an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq this
year and moved them from large bases into small neighbourhood outposts
in an effort to reduce sectarian violence in the capital and
surrounding provinces.

The U.S. military said it was helping to ferry wounded to hospitals in
the town of Tal Afar.

First Lieutenant Stephen Bomar, spokesman for the 25th Infantry
Division, said initial reports suggested 30 people were killed and 60
wounded in attacks by two suicide bombers.

In November 2006, six car bombs in different parts of northeast
Baghdad's sprawling Shi'ite slum of Sadr City killed 202 people and
wounded 250, while multiple car bombs around the capital killed 191
around Baghdad in April.

In the worst single attack this year, a truck packed with explosives
blew up in a market in the northern town of Tuz Khurmato in July,
killing 150 people and wounding 250.

Earlier on Tuesday, a suicide truck bomber killed 10 people and
destroyed a bridge linking Baghdad to the north.

The U.S. military also announced that 10 service members had died in
the past two days, including five in a helicopter crash.

It said the CH-47 Chinook helicopter crashed near al-Taqaddum air base
outside Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, while on a "routine
post-maintenance check flight".

There was no indication of whether it was shot down and an
investigation was under way.

The deaths of the five on board the helicopter takes the total number
of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to
topple Saddam Hussein to at least 3,699.

So far in August at least 41 U.S. service members have died, already
more than half of July's total of 71.

OFFENSIVE

U.S. President George W. Bush, under pressure to show results in the
unpopular war or start bringing troops home, has warned that August
would be a bloody month.

U.S. forces launched Operation Lightning Hammer, a big offensive of
16,000 troops beginning with an airborne assault overnight, part of a
major new push targeting Sunni Islamist al Qaeda fighters and Shi'ite
militias accused of links with Iran.

The latest operation targets militants who fled an earlier crackdown in
the Diyala provincial capital of Baquba. The larger, countrywide
Operation Phantom Strike was announced on Monday.

Al Qaeda is widely seen as trying to influence debate in Washington by
stepping up attacks in Iraq before a crucial progress report on the war
is delivered to Congress on Sept. 15.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said U.S. forces would launch a series
of operations over the next 30 days.

Yazidis have been the target of attacks before. In April, gunmen shot
dead 23 Yazidi factory workers in Mosul in apparent retaliation for the
stoning of a teenage Yazidi girl several weeks earlier.

Police said the girl had been stoned to death by local Yazidis after
falling in love with a Muslim man and converting to Islam.

Yazidis in Iraq say they have often faced discrimination because the
chief angel they venerate as a manifestation of God is often identified
as the fallen angel Satan in biblical terminology.

Yazidis, who say they suffered massacres during the secular rule of
Saddam Hussein, also believe God created good and evil in the world. 

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Ross Colvin in Baghdad)

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved

                                    ***

ex-PM Allawi Would Like a New Iraqi Govt, Please...

AFP via Yahoo - Aug 13, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070813/wl_mideast_afp/usiraqpoliticsallawi

Iraq needs new government, says former PM Allawi

Iraqi former prime minister Iyad Allawi on Monday blasted the current
government for being ill-equipped to halt the slide toward all-out
chaos, and urged a nonsectarian replacement of the regime.

Allawi, whose mixed Sunni-Shiite Iraqi National List this month joined
a boycott of the government led by Shiite Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki, told US National Public Radio that the present government is
fueling the problems ravaging the country.

"The whole situation is based on sectarianism and is
anti-reconciliation," Allawi said in the interview.

"I think the whole system ought to be changed, and a nonsectarian
regime should prevail," he said.

"Maliki is part of the sectarian system which is influencing and
affecting the country negatively. And we cannot see recovery --
political recovery that is to say -- if this sectarian system remains
operational in the country."

On August 6, the secular party loyal to Allawi announced it was
boycotting cabinet meetings, but that its four ministers would continue
daily administrative work.

They staged their boycott less than a week after six Sunni cabinet
members resigned from the government, further shrinking Maliki's
fragile coalition.

Allawi, who once plotted a CIA-backed coup against former president
Saddam Hussein, is widely viewed as a darling of US powerbrokers and
has relentlessly portrayed himself as a secular strongman capable of
reuniting the country.

"The country is on a slipping road towards more and more chaos and
violence. And we cannot see the end of the tunnel -- the light to bring
Iraq out of this mess. Sectarianism still prevails. Terrorism is still
rife in the country," he said.

"The army, the police are riddled with militias. And every day there
are a hundred, almost just over a hundred people killed."

The Iraqi National List initially controlled five cabinet seats in
Maliki's government, but justice minister Hashem al-Shibli has since
resigned.