Qahtaniyah bombings

2007 Qahtaniya bombings
Location of Qahtaniya in Iraq
Location	Qahtaniya, Iraq
Date	August 14, 2007 (UTC+3)
Target	Yazidis
Attack type	Car bombs
Deaths	~400
Injured	375
Perpetrators	Unknown: legal proceedings have not yet taken place.

The 2007 Qahtaniya bombings occurred at around 8pm local time on August 14, 2007, when four co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks detonated in the Iraqi town of Qahtaniya, near Mosul. Current estimates say the bombs killed at least 400 people and potentially up to 500 people, which would make this the Iraq War's deadliest attack as of August 2007.

Details

The blasts targeted a Kurdish religious minority, the Yazidi. Some 375 more were reported wounded as at least four blasts hit residential areas.

The co-ordinated bombings involved a fuel tanker and three cars. An Iraqi interior ministry spokesman said that 2 tons of explosives were used in the blasts, which crumbled buildings, trapping entire families beneath mud bricks and other wreckage as entire neighborhoods were flattened. Rescuers are digging underneath the destroyed buildings by hand to search for remaining survivors.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. "We're looking at al-Qaeda as the prime suspect," said Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver, a US military spokesman. The group is reported to have distributed leaflets denouncing Yazidis as "anti-Islamic".

Tensions and background

There have been tensions in the area in recent months particularly between Yazidis and Sunni Muslims, notably when members of the Yazidi sect stoned to death Du’a Khalil Aswad, a Yazidi teenage woman who allegedly wanted to convert to Islam in order to marry a Muslim man. Two weeks later, 23 Yazidi men were forced from a bus and shot dead. With US reinforcements in the Baghdad area, however, Al-Qaeda may also have logistical reasons for shifting the focus of their attacks elsewhere.

The Sinjar area which has a mixed population of Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs is scheduled to vote in a plebiscite on accession to the Kurdish region in December 2007. This has caused hostility among the neighbouring Arab communities. The massacre will, however, have strengthened the resolve of Yazidis to seek security as part of Kurdistan.

Reactions

• Iraq: President Jalal Talabani, also an Iraqi Kurd of the Sunni sect of the Muslim faith, described the attacks as a "cowardly terrorist act". Talabani also blamed the bombings on Iraqi Sunni Muslim Arab insurgents looking to cause havoc in a largely secure part of the nation.
• United Nations: Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks through a press release saying, "Nothing can justify such indiscriminate violence against innocent civilians". Ban also urged, "Iraqi leaders, regardless of their political or religious affiliations, to work together to protect civilian lives and to dedicate themselves towards a meaningful dialogue aimed at ending the violence and achieving lasting national reconciliation".
• United States: American spokespersons have called the bombings "barbaric". In a statement, the White House insisted US forces and the Iraqi government would continue to "beat back" the "vicious and heartless murderers".
• United Kingdom: Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in a press statement: "The reports of the violence in Northern Iraq, whose origin has not yet been established, are a murderous blow against the Iraqi people by those who seek only destruction.
• Iraqi Kurdistan: Representatives of the Kurdish Regional Government to the North claimed the attack could have been averted if the area had been controlled by Kurdish security.