Iraqi religious minority targeted
Updated on 15 August 2007
The unimaginable scale of Iraq's war with itself yet still finding fresh directions, greater scale.
The aftermath of the worst multiple suicide bombing in Iraq for nearly a year has left over 200 dead, 300 injured. Trapped beneath levelled mud houses.
Kahtaniya, one of three villages struck at the same time last night by bombs on fuel tankers, is suffering. Suffering that's woefully familiar in Iraq.
'There is no question, we still have great deal of work to do against al Qaida in Iraq and we have great deal of work to do against al Qaida networks in northern Iraq.'General Kevin Bergner, military spokesperson
The only difference here is that the recent attacks were in the relatively peaceful North.
And these victims are from the minority Yazidi religious sect.
The Yazidis are Kurds, whose religion pre-dates Islam, the smallest of religions who have now been dragged into the cycle of sectarian violence. Worshipping an angel some say is the devil. Today's Iraq is no place for religious pluralism.
There are internet pictures which show the execution of over 20 Yazidi men - apparently by Sunni militia - in April.
Fears are now high among Coalition and Iraqi forces that Yazidis might stage a revenge attack against local Sunnis.
Last night's blasts were perhaps another turn in the cycle of factional violence. Trying to put faces to the ghosts of an enemy fought in America's war on terror.
Abu Ayyud Al Masri is the head of Al-Qaida in Iraq. Apparently. Some say he's dead.
A US spokesman has told Channel 4 News they were aware they ran the risk of using al-Qaida in Iraq as a catch-all term for opposing forces.
And the Coalition has had to admit last month that the man they thought was his predecessor in the job - Abu Omar al-Baghdadi - never actually existed.
Al-Qaida in Iraq is becoming less of a known quantity, even as its importance in American rhetoric rises.
