4 died, 14 wounded in Sinjar blast

NINEWA / IraqiNews.com: The number of casualties from Thursday’s earlier car bomb attack that targeted several stores selling liquor in Sinjar district rose to four deaths and 14 wounded, according to the Sinjar Public Hospital director. “The final count of casualties from a car bomb blast that targeted some stores selling liquor in Tal Qasab, southern Sinjar, rose to four deaths and 14 wounded,” Dr. Kifah Mohammed Jassem told IraqiNews.com news agency. “Two of the wounded were in a critical condition and were referred to the Duhuk Hospital in the Iraqi Kurdistan region,” he added. “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,” a security source had said. He added that all of the casualties in the blast were Yazidis. 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, 120 km northwest of Mosul, 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