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Mosul:
23 Kurdish Yazidi sect members slaina, a
car bomb
near KDP
23.4.2007 |
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April
23, 2007
Mosul, (Northern Iraq) -- A car bomb near the
offices of a Kurdish political party in a mainly
Christian village of northern Iraq today killed at
least 10 people and wounded 20, an official with the
party told AFP.
The explosion occurred near the office of the
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the village of
Tal Isquf, north of the restive city of Mosul, said
party spokesman Abdul Gani Ali.
Witnesses told AFP by telephone that a car loaded
with explosives exploded between the party offices
and a social club in the village, 30 kilometers
north of Mosul.
They said some of the victims were thought to be
Kurdish peshmerga fighters.
- Gunmen executed 23 members of an ancient religious
sect in northern Iraq yesterday after stopping their
bus and separating out followers of other faiths,
while at least 20 persons were killed in car
bombings in the capital.
In the northern Iraq attack, armed men stopped a bus
which was carrying workers from a textile factory in
Mosul to their hometown of Bashika, which has a
mixed population of Christians and Kurdish Yazidis
-- members of a primarily Kurdish sect that worships
an angel figure considered to be the devil by some
Muslims and Christians.
The gunmen checked the passengers' identification
cards, then asked all Christians to get off the bus,
said police Brig. Mohammed al-Wagga. With the
Yazidis still inside, the gunmen drove them to
eastern Mosul, where they were lined up along a wall
and fatally shot, Brig. al-Wagga said.
After the killings, hundreds of Yazidis took to the
streets of Bashika. Shops were shuttered and many
Muslim residents closed themselves in their homes,
fearing reprisal attacks. Police set up additional
checkpoints across the city.
Bashika is about 80 percent Yazidi, 15 percent
Christian and 5 percent Muslim.
Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a police spokesman for Ninevah
province, said the executions were in response to
the killing two weeks ago of a Yazidi woman who had
recently converted to Islam after she fell in love
with a Muslim and ran off with him. Her relatives
had disapproved of the match and dragged her back to
Bashika, where she was stoned to death, he said.
A grainy video showing gruesome scenes of the
woman's killing was distributed on Iraqi Web sites
in recent weeks, but its authenticity could not be
confirmed.
AP | AFP
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