2 killed, 10 wounded in car bomb blast near liquor store in Sinjar

NINEWA / IraqiNews.com: Two people were killed and 10 others wounded in a car bomb attack that targeted a store selling liquor in the district of Sinjar, western Mosul city, on Thursday, according to an Iraqi police source. “The explosive vehicle attack went off near a liquor store in the predominantly religious minority Yazidi area of Tal Qasab, south of Sinjar district, (120 km) west of Mosul, leaving two, one of them an interpreter for the U.S. forces, killed and 10 others, wounded,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. He added that all of the casualties in the blast were Yazidis. “The wounded were rushed to the nearby Sinjar Hospital for treatment,” the source added. He noted that an investigation was launched to verify whether the attack targeted the interpreter or the liquor store. Yazidis are primarily ethnic Kurds and most live near Mosul, with smaller communities in Armenia, Georgia, Iran, Russia, Syria, and Turkey. They number around 800,000 individuals in total, but estimates of their population size vary, partially due to the Yazidi tradition of secrecy about their religious beliefs. Sinjar is inhabited by Yazidis, a religious minority whose followers are generally situated in northern Iraq. Some 350,000 Yazidis live in villages around Mosul, 405 km north of Baghdad. AmR (P) 3