Iraq

Iraq rescuers sift through rubble after suicide blasts that killed 200

Rescuers were today digging through the muddy ruins of clay houses in north-west Iraq where suicide bombers last night detonated fuel tankers rigged with explosives, killing at least 200 members of a minority sect.

The incident near the Syrian border was one of the deadliest since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.

More than 300 people were injured, said Dakhil Qassim, the mayor of the nearby town of Sinjar, when the fuel tankers blew up in the remote villages of Kahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair. Officials today imposed a curfew on the area.

The villages are about 75 miles west of the city of Mosul, a stronghold of Sunni Islamic militants. The attacks targeted people from the Yezidi religious minority, whom Sunni extremists regard as infidels.

All the 'surge' has done is pushed the violence out of Baghdad and into the provinces, easier targets for the insurgents, in this case the Yezidi.

There is no success in Iraq and those who delude themseleves that everything is going swimmingly should be ashamed.