Mastermind of Iraq Yazidi attack killed: U.S. military

Source: Reuters

Mastermind of Iraq Yazidi attack killed: U.S. military

44 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. air strike killed a
militant linked to al Qaeda who masterminded truck
bombings on Iraq's minority Yazidi community last
month that killed more than 400 people, the military
said on Sunday.


"On September 3, a coalition air strike killed the
terrorist responsible for the planning and conducting
of the horrific attack against the Yazidis in northern
Iraq on August 14," military spokesman Rear Admiral
Mark Fox told a news conference.

Iraq's government has put the death toll at 411 from
the suicide bombings, although the Iraqi Red Crescent
has said it could be more than 500. The bombings in
the villages of Kahtaniya and al-Jazeera were the
deadliest militant attacks in Iraq since the U.S.-led
invasion in 2003.

Fox named the mastermind as Abu Mohammed al-Aafri,
who he said was an associate of Abu Ayyab al-Masri,
the Egyptian leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Aafri was killed in an air strike southwest of the
northern city of Mosul, Fox said.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070909/us_nm/iraq_yazidis_dc

In terms of elimination of individuals, air strikes are shite.

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200709050002?f=h_column

(...)

In fact, with a death toll topping 500, the mid-August bombing ranks as the second deadliest terror strike ever recorded in modern times. Only the coordinated attacks on 9-11 have claimed more innocent lives. Yet the press failed to put the story in context.

Early news dispatches about the attacks (which pegged the early death toll at a smaller, but still remarkable, 175) were posted around 6 p.m. ET on August 14. Yet that night on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, the hour-long news program that airs at 10 p.m., the carnage from Iraq garnered just a brief report, and that was relegated to the "360 Bulletin," halfway through the program; a report on a playground catching on fire due to spontaneous combustion of decomposing wood chips was given slightly more airtime and, unlike the suicide bombings, prompted a reaction from host Cooper himself: "That's incredible. I never heard of that." Less surprising was the fact that a pro-Bush outlet such as The Drudge Report, as late as 10:30 p.m. that night, was ignoring the massive blast headline, or that Fox News gave the gruesome attack just three mentions all evening.

The next day, as noted by the Columbia Journalism Review, the story was placed on A6 in both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, and Page 4 of USA Today. On that evening's NBC Nightly News, the historic massacre from Iraq was not even tapped as the day's most important story. (Ongoing mortgage woes led the broadcast that night.)

The media's tepid response to the cataclysmic event was telling. It simply underscored how Iraq fatigue afflicts American newsrooms -- but not American households.

(...)

those steeped in pre-Islamic honor practices--is a bad thing.

Best be pudic towards them. Them's the rules. Yazidis ... impudent.

Or we can just decide to rewrite the rules in an act of cultural supremacy and kick the Islamist pudenda. (That's my preferred solution, mirroring *their* preferred solution.)

(Let's see ... can I used Latinate pud- in some other way? ... Hmmm ... I think not.)

their backs? If you're hit by an airstrike, how much of you is left intact?

Just curious?