NEW YORK/KAHTANIYA, Iraq, 17 August 2007 — The suicide bombings that ravaged the Yazidi sect in Iraq underscored the fears of violence and insecurity binding many of the country’s religious minorities, ranging from Christians who are fleeing their ancient enclaves to a dwindling sect that follows the teachings of John the Baptist.
The various religious groups — which in total account for no more than 3 percent of the population — increasingly worry that they will be caught helplessly in the battles between the majority Shiite and Sunni factions or, as in the case in Tuesday’s attack, directly targeted by extremists.
“Minorities have historically inhabited areas that are disputed, that lie at the fault lines of the other communities,” said Mark Lattimer, executive director of the London-based Minority Rights Group.
The Yazidi, said Lattimer, have a double curse. They live in a strategic corridor between Mosul, the chief city in northern Iraq, and the borders of Turkey and Syria.
The area could become increasingly coveted territory for the insurgent group Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which appears to be seeking to retrench in northern Iraq after being driven from strongholds in and around Baghdad by US-led offensives.
The group is blamed for the series of four suicide truck bombings that claimed more than 400 lives in the Yazidi town of Kahtaniya in the deadliest attack on civilians since the US-led invasion in 2003. Yazidis also are often scorned by Muslims as infidels for their blend of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism, the pre-Islamic faith of Persia.
The Yazidis — mostly ethnic Kurds — date their beliefs back 4,000 years and worship an angel figure, Malak Ta’us, or Peacock Angel, who is considered to be the devil by some Muslims and Christians. Yazidis, who do not believe in hell or evil, deny the characterization.
Meanwhile, angry Yazidis said they feared annihilation. Frail clay houses in the center of Kahtaniya, one of two villages targeted by garbage trucks packed with explosives, were flattened for several blocks. Chunks of concrete and twisted aluminum lay in the street beside the destroyed homes of hundreds of Yazidis.
“Their aim is to annihilate us, to create trouble and kill all the Yazidis because we are not Muslims,” said Abu Saeed, a gray-bearded old man in Kahtaniya.
Saeed told Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, who made a short tour of the devastated area, that 51 members of his extended family had been killed.
About 100 angry Yazidi men gathered as Salih met local officials. “It’s like a nuclear site, the site of a nuclear bomb,” Salih, a Kurd, told Reuters.
The US military has said Al-Qaeda is the prime suspect for the bombings. It had said large-scale attacks were possible before a progress report on the conflict is delivered to Congress on Sept. 15.
US forces this week began a new nationwide security push, including operations north and south of Baghdad, targeting Sunni Islamist Al-Qaeda militants and Shiite militias.
The US military said yesterday two soldiers had been killed and six wounded in combat north of the capital on Wednesday. A total of 3,701 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
US President George W. Bush, under pressure to show results in the unpopular war, has said August could be a bloody month as troops move out of bases into smaller outposts and as Al-Qaeda attempts to influence debate in Washington.
“Al-Qaeda wants to kill all the Yazidis,” said another Kahtaniya villager, who gave his name only as Hossein. “Another bomb like this and there will be no more Yazidis left.”
In April, gunmen killed 23 Yazidi factory workers in Mosul in apparent retaliation for the stoning several weeks earlier of a teenaged Yazidi girl who police said had fallen in love with a Sunni Arab man and converted to Islam.
Angry Yazidis pleaded for help in the aftermath of the bombings. “We are thirsty. We have had no water for days,” Naif Kudar Ismael said in Kahtaniya, a village of about 1,600.
Nineveh province Gov. Duraid Kashmoula said the massive blasts buried entire families. Zairyan Othman, minister of health in neighboring Kurdistan, Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, said 205 were killed and 235 wounded.
