Suicide bombers kill 20 in Iraq sect attack

Baghdad, Aug 15: Suicide bombers driving fuel tankers killed 20 people and wounded 70 in what appeared to be an attack on an ancient minority sect in northern Iraq today, police said.

Police said it appeared three bombers driving separate tankers had attacked Yazidi sect members in different neighbourhoods in Mosul, 390 km north of Baghdad, detonating their vehicles in quick succession.

Yazidis are members of a pre-Islamic Kurdish sect and live in northern Iraq and Syria.

Yazidis in Iraq say they have faced discrimination because the chief angel they venerate as a manifestation of God is often identified as the fallen angel Satan in biblical terminology.

Yazidis say they suffered massacres during the secular rule of Saddam Hussein.

In April, gunmen shot dead 23 Yazidi factory workers in Mosul in apparent retaliation for the stoning of a teenaged Yazidi girl several weeks earlier Police said the girl had been stoned to death by local Yazidis after falling in love with a Muslim man and converting to Islam. Gruesome video of her killing was aired by television networks around the world.

Reuters>