It sure could be, as not only the blogs note the suspicious circumstances, but Sy Hersh alerted us to the Israeli presence years ago.
Serves to keep us in Iraq and gives us an intel and operations base for the coming war with Iran.
CUI BONO, reader?
I just heard Jane Araff on MSNBC say the "suicide" attacks have "all the hallmarks of Al-CIA-Duh!"
That settles it. A MOSSAD OP!
Now the death toll is up to 500!
"4 Truck Bombs Kill 190 in Kurdish Area of Iraq" by DAMIEN CAVE
BAGHDAD, Aug. 14 — Four truck bombs killed at least 190 people on Tuesday in two villages in a Kurdish-speaking area near the Syrian border, destroying houses and sending hundreds of the wounded to at least six hospitals as far as 150 miles away, the Iraqi authorities said.
Hours after the blasts, victims were still buried in dusty rubble as American helicopters ferried away the wounded.
Capt. Mohammed Ahmad of the Iraqi Army’s 3rd Division:
“Half the houses are completely collapsed because they were made from clay.”
He said scores of families were obliterated in the blast that wiped out a market and a bus station.
Another Iraqi officer described the scene as apocalyptic:
“It looks like a nuclear bomb hit the villages.”
The bombs — including at least one rigged to a fuel tanker — detonated in quick succession around 8 p.m. in Qahtaniya and Jazeera, two towns populated mostly by Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking sect that mixes elements of Islam with the teachings of an ancient Persian religion.
[They say suiciders, but they never elaborate. WTF?]
The blasts capped one of the worst days of violence in months.... American officials have been pushing Iraqi leaders to hammer out a grand compromise on... a new oil law.... In an attack on Tuesday... at least 100 gunmen in Iraqi Army uniforms kidnapped several senior Oil Ministry officials from their homes in a fortified government compound.
The victims... were abducted from a guarded area that sits about 300 yards from an Iraqi Army checkpoint often manned with tanks. The motives for the kidnappings remained unclear.... Attacks by gunmen wearing army or police uniforms are typically attributed to Shiite militias that work within the security forces.... The abduction did not appear to be sectarian because at least two of the victims were Shiites.
[But are probably BLACKWATER or some other Baghdad Option.
That's sure what it smells like!]
Elsewhere in Iraq on Tuesday, a truck bomb in Taji, north of Baghdad, killed at least 10 people and destroyed a bridge on the main highway connecting the capital with northern cities like Mosul.
[Cutting of insurgent flows, 'eh, Amurka?
CUI BONO, reader? We can fly in supplies.]
Witnesses said the explosion destroyed the bridge, which was damaged in May by a car bomb, and sent several vehicles into a canal. Afterward, American and Iraqi divers could be seen trying to pull people out of the water.
[Just like in Minneapolis, huh?]
Military officials said the cause of a helicopter crash on Tuesday that killed five Americans... was still under investigation.
Meanwhile, in Diyala Province, roughly 10,000 American soldiers and 6,000 Iraqis continued to push through villages surrounding Baquba in what commanders described as a large-scale offensive aimed at Sunni extremists.
Military officials said the latest phase, named Lightning Hammer, began Monday and sought to attack... the villages outside Baquba.
[I thought it was called Phantom Strike.
So we got TWO operations (and who knows how many more) going?]
Military officials did not say whether the truck bombings could also be a result of their efforts... it is not clear where the attackers on Tuesday were based."
[An "Al-CIA-Duh" base, wherever that is, I'm sure]
"175 killed as blasts target sect in Iraq; 4 truck bombs hit group in north" by Megan Greenwell and Dlovan Brwari/Washington Post August 15, 2007
BAGHDAD -- At least 175 people were killed last night by four truck bombs in a massive coordinated attack against members of a small religious sect, the Yazidis, in northern Iraq, the Iraqi Army said. The nearly simultaneous explosions in three Yazidi communities near the town of Sinjar, added up to.... hundreds of wounded people, [who] were flown or driven to hospitals, overwhelming every emergency room in the region.
Khidr Farhan was on his way to buy vegetables when the first truck bomb exploded near the market in his tiny Yazidi enclave.
Mr. Farhan, from his hospital bed in Dahuk, where he was recovering from a concussion, a broken leg, and a broken rib, began to cry during the interview:
"I found myself flying through the air, and my face was burning. I felt my leg hurting, and I knew my head was bleeding. Then I couldn't feel anything. When I woke up, I was in the hospital. Where is my family? I left my wife and my four children at home. Did they die?"
[Oh, man! Yeah, they hate us more then they love their kids, huh?!]
Haji Sido was driving from his workplace to his home in the Tall Aziz community when another of the bombs exploded there. He was not injured, but most of the mud-walled huts in the village collapsed and dead bodies littered the ground, he recounted:
"I ran past people screaming on the ground. I didn't care, because I had to get to my family. When I got home, my wife said: 'Calm down and thank God. We are safe.' "
The Yazidis are an ancient group whose faith combines elements of many historical religions of the region. They worship a peacock archangel and are considered Satanists by some Muslims and Christians in Iraq, a characterization they reject.
Yazidis largely live apart from other Iraqis, in villages near the Syrian border, to maintain religious purity and are forbidden to fraternize with other groups. Most Yazidis speak Kurdish but object to being called Kurds.
Despite such isolation, tensions among the Yazidis, Muslim Kurds, and Arab groups in northern Iraq have led to increasingly violent incidents. In April, a 17-year-old Yazidi girl was stoned to death after she eloped with a Sunni Muslim man and converted to Islam. Cellphone video footage of her death, called an "honor killing" by other Yazidis, was broadcast widely on the Internet, setting off a wave of attacks against the group.
Two weeks later, 23 Yazidi factory workers were dragged off a bus and executed in Mosul in apparent retaliation for the teenager's death. Police said the attack had been carried out by the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq.
No one asserted responsibility for yesterday's bombings. Khairi Bozani, a Yazidi who lives in Sinjar, called them the most recent step in a campaign by other Iraqi groups to drive the Yazidis out of the country.
Bozani said: "They are trying to finish the Yazidis. If the girl hadn't been killed, they would have found another excuse to attack us."
[Is it not strange that this wasn't happening until WE GOT THERE!
If the Muslims, et al., wanted to get rid of the Yazidis they could have done it ANYTIME over the last thousand years.
WTF? I don't believe the bullshit in my Zionist-controlled War Dailies any more!!!]
The bridge that was hit by a truck bomb was located in Taji, north of Baghdad. The vehicle, a fuel tanker, had just passed through an Iraqi Army checkpoint at about 8:30 a.m. when it detonated on the bridge. The blast killed 10 people and sent three cars plunging into a canal that joins the Tigris River.... It also destroyed the northern section of the bridge.
Also yesterday, a deputy oil minister was kidnapped by armed men at his home in the Oil Ministry compound in eastern Baghdad.... The abduction was carried out by gunmen wearing Iraqi security force uniforms who entered the compound late yesterday afternoon in more than a dozen official vehicles.
Meanwhile, the US military announced that it has begun a major new offensive involving 16,000 American and Iraqi soldiers in Diyala province... Operation Lightning Hammer. "
[Gee, the descriptions of the FOUR "suicide" bombers was AWFULLY LIGHT, folks. WTF?]
"Four suicide bombings kill 175 in Iraq" by Kim Gamel/Associated Press August 14, 2007
BAGHDAD --Four suicide bombers struck nearly simultaneously at communities of a small Kurdish sect in northwestern Iraq late Tuesday, killing at least 175 people and wounding 200 more, Iraqi military and local officials said.
It was most vicious attack yet against the Yazidis, an ancient religious community in the region whose members are considered infidels by some Muslims.
[And yet they have been there thousands of years, and are also considered heretics by Christians (which she doesn't mention)]
The bombings came as extremists staged other bold attacks: leveling a key bridge outside Baghdad and abducting five officials from an Oil Ministry compound in the capital in a raid using gunmen dressed as security officers.
Meanwhile, some 16,000 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers began a sweep through the Diyala River valley.
The Yazidis, a primarily Kurdish group with ancient roots that worships an angel figure considered to be the devil by some Muslims and Christians. Yazidis, who don't believe in hell or evil, deny that.
The suicide attacks came just after sundown near Qahataniya, 75 miles west of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, said Abdul-Rahman al-Shimiri, the top government official in the area, and Iraq army Capt. Mohammed Ahmed.
At least one of the trucks was an explosives-laden fuel tanker, police said. Shops were set ablaze and apartment buildings were reported crumbled by the powerful explosions.
Khadir Shamu, a 30-year-old Yazidi who was injured in Tal Azir, scene of two blasts:
"My friend and I were thrown high in the air. I still don't know what happened to him."
Witnesses said U.S. helicopters swooped in to evacuate wounded to hospitals in Dahuk, a Kurdish city near the Turkish border about 60 miles north of Qahataniya. Civilian cars and ambulances also rushed injured to hospitals in Dahuk, police said.
Ghassan Salim, a 40-year-old Yazidi teacher who went to a hospital to donate blood:
"I gave blood. I saw many maimed people with no legs or hands. Many of the wounded were left in the hospital garage or in the streets because the hospital is small."
There was no claim of responsibility, but the attack bore the hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq.
The center of the Yazidi faith is around Mosul, but smaller communities exist in Turkey, Syria and other places.
Baghdad was spared major violence... but the brazen daylight raid on the Oil Ministry complex showed that armed gangs can still embarrass authorities. Dozens of gunmen wearing security force uniforms stormed the compound and abducted a deputy oil minister and four other officials who were spirited away in a convoy of military-style vehicles."
[Better pass that oil law, Iraqis, or BLACKWATER will grab more of youse!]
The violence punctuated a day when 16,000 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers began a sweep through the Diyala River valley in a new operation north of Baghdad in pursuit of Sunni insurgents and Shiite militiamen driven out of Baqouba and Anbar province over the past several weeks.
Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, a military spokesman in northern Iraq, said the force included 10,000 Americans and 6,000 Iraqis. He said U.S. aircraft used more than 30,000 pounds of munitions to block routes and destroy known and suspected heavy machine gun positions.
The Air Force also dropped 9,000 pounds of bombs to attack an al-Qaida in Iraq training camp, which included bunkers, living quarters, weapons and ammunition caches, Donnelly said. Three suspected militants had been killed and four booby-trapped houses destroyed, he said, citing preliminary reports.
In Washington, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said the new operation was one in a series planned over the next 30 days."
[So buckle your seat belts, Iraqis.
You are in for a rough ride -- if you survive, that is!]
"5 dead, a dozen missing in Iraq bridge bombing" by Carol J. Williams/Los Angeles Times August 14, 2007
BAGHDAD -- A suicide bomber detonated a truckload of explosives on a key bridge north of the Iraqi capital today, plunging the concrete span and at least three vans packed with passengers into the murky waters of a wide canal linking the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Police said at least five people were killed and a dozen were missing.
The Draa Dijla span near the town of Taji, about 12 miles north of the capital, is on the main route from Baghdad to the city of Kirkuk. It was a vital connection to the oil refineries and pipelines in the north and the gateway to Iraqi Kurdistan.
Despite an intensified crackdown by U.S. and Iraqi forces, militants continued their attacks across the strife-torn heart of Iraq. Gunmen killed the pregnant wife of an Iraqi policeman, his brother and 12-year-old son in Suwayrah, about 30 miles south of Baghdad. Four people were shot to death in a Shiite village in Diyala province.
The stepped-up U.S.-led offensive launched this week... military officials said... netted 16 suspected terrorists today, but it also appeared to have inflicted civilian casualties. A family of four, including a 3-year-old girl, died in an airstrike on their Sadr City apartment building, witnesses said. The family was sleeping overnight on the roof, probably to find relief from the capital's 120-degree heat.
Coalition forces liberated six hostages from an insurgent-run prison in Mosul and arrested five suspects said to be aligned with Al Qaeda in Iraq, the U.S. military said. The Kurdish and Christian prisoners had been bound and blindfolded for two weeks and were being held in lieu of $100,000 ransom each, Army Col. Stephen Twitty said from 1st Cavalry Division headquarters in Tikrit. The suspects will be turned over to the Iraqi government to face trial on terrorism charges, he said."
[Gee, why did the Zionist-controlled Times and Globe HIDE the AIR STRIKES and CIVILIAN DEATHS, hanh?!?!
What SHIT RAGS!
The number of U.S. military personnel who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003: 3,700
That DID make the papers, but WHO CARES?]
