At least 175 people were killed and 200 wounded Tuesday by four truck bombs in a massive coordinated attack against members of a small religious sect, the Yazidis, in northern Iraq, the Iraqi army said.The nearly simultaneous explosions in three Yazidi communities near the town of Sinjar, added up to the deadliest attack in Iraq this year and one of the most lethal since the U.S. invasion in 2003. Hundreds of wounded people were flown or driven to hospitals, overwhelming every emergency room in the region, according to George Shlimon, vice mayor of the nearby city of Dahuk.
In Baghdad, the U.S. military reported the deaths of nine U.S. troops in three separate incidents, including the crash of a twin-rotor Chinook helicopter. A truck bomb rendered impassable a bridge on a major route from Baghdad to the north.
Khidr Farhan was on his way to buy vegetables when the first truck bomb exploded near the market in his tiny Yazidi enclave. "I found myself flying through the air, and my face was burning," he said from his hospital bed in Dahuk, where he was recovering from a concussion, a broken leg and a broken rib.
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