Yazidi bomber killed in US strike
Abu Muhammad al-Afri was killed 70 miles south-west of Mosul, northern Iraq
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Sunday, 09, Sep 2007 08:22
The alleged mastermind of one of the worst terrorist atrocities since the US-led invasion of Iraq has been killed in an air strike, the Pentagon has said.
Abu Muhammad al-Afri was blamed by the American military for organising the killing of more than 700 Yazidi villagers in the Nineveh province last month.
A statement from coalition forces in Iraq said that al-Afri, whose aliases included Abu Jasim, Arkan Hassan Ali, Nuraddin, Hajar and Abu Ahmad al-Alfri, was killed in a targeted operation on September 3rd.
According to an army spokesman the al-Qaida in Iraq emir's body has been identified by suspected insurgent detainees.
The August 14th attacks against the Yazidi minority in Iraq razed the villages of Qataniyah and Adnaniyah after four lorries packed with explosives were blown up, wiping out whole families in the process.
The Yazidi, who worldwide number several hundred thousand, follow a set of religious beliefs that predate Islam and speak a variant of Kurdish.
They worship the chief archangel known as Melek Taus (peacock angel) otherwise known in Abrahamic religions as Lucifer or Satan, although they do not believe in the devil, sin or evil.
Coalition forces spokesman Major Winfield Danielson said that al-Afri, an associate of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was killed in a remote area 70 miles south-west of Mosul, northern Iraq.
"This doesn't bring back the hundreds of innocent Iraqis who were killed in the vicious Nineveh bombings, but the death of Abu Muhammad al-Afri does bring justice to many families," he said.
"We will continue to hunt down al-Qaida in Iraq and its operatives, who conduct indiscriminate and brutal attacks."