At least 15 people killed in bomb attack in Shabak village in northern Iraq

BBC:
Suicide bomb targets Shia in northern Iraq



At least 15 people have been killed in a suicide bomb in northern Iraq, in the latest attack on the Shia community.

The incident happened in the village of Mwafaqiya, where members of Iraq's Shabak minority live.

Qusay Abbas, a former Shabak representative in the Mosul provincial council, said the attack happened early in the morning.

"A suicide truck bomber detonated himself amidst the houses of my village," he said.

"There are still some people under the debris of their houses."

It is not clear who carried out the attack, but the Shabak - who largely follow a faith considered an offshoot of Shia Islam - are frequently targeted by Sunni militants.

Last month, a suicide bomb attack on a Shabak funeral in Nineveh killed more than 20 people.

The monitoring group Iraq Body Count says more than 6,000 people have been killed in violence across the country this year.

Sectarian violence has surged across Iraq in recent months, reaching its highest level since 2008.

Attacks on Shabak families in Mosul

In the northern city of Mosul, gunmen broke into the houses of two Shabak families, killing a boy and his parents in one and a mother and daughter in the other, according to police. A bomb exploded near the house of another Shabak family, wounding six family members.

Shabaks are ethnically Turkmen and Shiite by religion. Most Shabaks were driven out of Mosul by Sunni militants during the sectarian fighting a few years ago.

Medics in nearby hospitals confirmed the casualties.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/18-killed-in-iraq-attacks-during-eid-aladha-holiday-8229168.html#

Attack on the village of KHAZNA, north of Mosul

Note: Contrary to what Prof Juan Cole writes (see hereunder), the Shabaks are not a 'Kurdish people', Shabaks are a Turkic people!!!


Over 40 Dead in Morning Bombings in Baghdad
http://www.juancole.com/
Monday, August 10, 2009
Iraq woke up to a bloody Monday morning, with three major bombings that left more than 40 dead according to Middle East Online writing in Arabic. The biggest attack was on the village of Khazna north of Mosul, where two truck bombs killed 25 persons, wounded 70, and leveled 35 houses!

This attack was not just mindless violence. Khazna is inhabited by the Shabak, a Kurdish people with their own dialect and their own form of religion, a form of folk Shiism. An attack on Khazna at the present juncture suggests an attempt by the Sunni Arab guerrillas based in Mosul to ethnically cleanse Shiites in Ninevah Province, and possibly to begin the long-feared Arab-Kurdish civil war.