III. Targeting Nineveh’s Minorities for Murder

A Recipe for Violence

Shortly after US-led forces invaded Iraq in 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority disbanded Iraq’s entire military and security apparatus, with the exception of the Kurdish peshmerga. Taking advantage of this security vacuum, and with thousands of battle-hardened, disgruntled, and unemployed Iraqi security personnel as well as many Arabs displaced by the reversal of the “arabization” process to recruit from, Sunni extremist groups sowed mayhem throughout the country, igniting a sectarian conflict. As the conflict spread, an increasing number of Sunni and Shia men were drawn into the fighting.[69] While Iraqis from all ethnic and religious denominations suffered from the overwhelming violence in the years that followed the occupation, the smaller minority communities have been particularly vulnerable.

Sectarian violence peaked in mid-2006 with an unprecedented number of murders, enforced disappearances, abductions, torture, and attacks on religious sites, including Shia and Sunni mosques, and churches.[70] In August 2006, Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province cut ties with al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, alienated by the group’s brutal tactics and extremist ideology. The US military embraced the resulting Awakening movement and paid Sunni tribesmen, dubbed “Sons of Iraq,” about $300 each a month to end their attacks on US convoys and troops and to protect checkpoints and buildings.[71]

Despite security gains in most of Iraq by early 2008, Nineveh remained one of the most dangerous and unstable parts of the country. Even a major military offensive in the spring of 2009, when 4,000 US and more than 25,000 Iraqi security personnel swept through each of Mosul’s neighborhoods, did little to quell bloody attacks in the city or Nineveh province.[72]

As US forces largely withdrew from cities to their bases on June 30, 2009, as part of a security agreement with the government of Iraq, attacks in Nineveh, particularly against minority groups, increased dramatically, and at this writing show no sign of abating. In the six weeks after the withdrawal, attacks against minority groups in four different locations killed more than 137 and injured almost 500 from the Yazidi, Shabak, and Turkmen communities. On July 9, 2009, suicide bombers killed at least 45 people and wounded 65 more in Tal Afar, a mainly Turkmen city west of Mosul.[73]

On August 7 a truck packed with explosives detonated outside a Shia Turkmen mosque filled with people attending a funeral service on the northern fringes of Mosul in Shirakhan. The bombing killed at least 37 and wounded 276.[74] August 11 saw one of the deadliest attacks against the Shabak community since 2003: Two massive truck bombings killed at least 35, wounded more than 110, and flattened 30 houses in the Shabak village of al-Khazna in the Nineveh Plains.[75] Two days later, on August 13, two suicide bombers targeted Yazidis in a crowded café in the city of Sinjar, killing at least 21 and wounding more than 30.(The latter two incidents are described in more detail below.)

While other cities have made gains in eradicating the activities of armed Islamist groups, the reverse is true for Mosul, which experiences bombings and shootings on an almost daily basis.[76] The city has become a strategic stronghold for remaining Sunni insurgent groups partly because of Sunni fears about the growing Kurdish hegemony in the region and the widespread displacement of Arabs as a consequence of the reversal of arabization. Continuing Sunni Arab disillusionment has allowed the creation of safe havens for extremists to operate in their neighborhoods and to persecute minorities with a free hand.

Attacks have struck directly at the social infrastructure of minority communities, leaving victims and others fearful to carry on with their everyday lives. Although there are political divisions within each minority group, between those who want a closer union with the KRG and others who would prefer to remain under the authority of the central government, members of every minority Human Rights Watch interviewed agreed that the situation for minorities had become dire.

“Before we understood that we had a totalitarian government and therefore abuses happened. But now we are supposed to be free and democratic. This democracy is killing us,”said a 70-year-old Assyrian community elder in the town of Tal Usquf.[77] “We’re not minorities, we’re the oldest people in Iraq—we are the indigenous people of this country, like the Native Americans.”

Killings of Chaldo-Assyrians

Since 2003, armed groups opposed to communities of different faiths living in their vicinity, especially ones with perceived ties to the supposedly Christian West (and, by association, with the multinational forces in Iraq—they are perceived as accounting for a high proportion of the translators working for US forces, for example) have repeatedly attacked the Chaldo-Assyrian community. The perceived Christian support for the KRG’s claim to the disputed territories, and the wealth of some Christians are also factors.

Under the previous Baathist government, only Christians and Yazidis, whose religions do not prohibit alcohol use, were permitted to sell liquor, making them easily identifiable as members of minority groups because of their trade, which religious Muslims frown upon. Extremists have bombed, looted, and defaced liquor stores in Mosul and elsewhere.[78] Organized criminals also sometimes fake a jihadist identity to mask a real motive of extortion and thievery. They regard Christians as rich and without protection, since they traditionally have not had any tribal or militia links.[79] Christians active in the jewelry and gold trade have been particularly targeted for kidnappings for ransom and killings.

One of the most notorious incidents targeting the Chaldo-Asyrian community occurred on February 29, 2008, when assailants kidnapped Chaldean Archbishop Paulus Faraj Rahho in Mosul as he was leaving the Holy Spirit Church. They shot his driver and bodyguards; the archbishop’s body turned up 10 days later.[80] The accused leader of the kidnappers, Ahmed Ali Ahmed (known as Abu Omar), was captured by Iraqi officials, who described him as an al Qaeda leader. In a rare prosecution, Ahmed was tried for the murder and convicted in May 2008 and sentenced to death.[81] The archbishop was the third senior Christian religious figure to be killed in Mosul since 2006. On November 30, 2006, assailants kidnapped Friar Mundhir Al-Dayr of the Protestant Church in Mosul and killed him with a bullet shot to his head. Friar Ragheed Ganni and three deacons were gunned down in their car on June 3, 2007.[82] Like most of the attacks against minority communities, those killings remain unresolved but fit the pattern of violence predominantly used by Sunni Arab Islamist groups.

Beginning in September 2008 a series of killings by armed assailants shook the Christian community in Mosul, leading to a mass exodus of thousands of Christians from the city. (Even before the attack, Christians had been fleeing Iraq at much higher rates than other groups; their number in Iraq fell to about 675,000 in 2008, from one million in 2003,[83] and almost 20 percent of Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries are thought to be Christians.[84]) Assailants, most likely from Sunni Arab extremist groups, targeted Christians in their homes, in their work, and in places of worship.

This wave of killings targeting Christians began shortly after the community lobbied the Iraqi parliament to pass a law that would set aside a greater number of seats for minorities in the January 2009 provincial elections.[85] The killings escalated after September 28, shortly after Christians held demonstrations in Nineveh and Baghdad in response to parliament’s decision (later amended) to drop a provision in an earlier version of the provincial elections law ensuring political representation for minorities (protesters reportedly held up signs demanding the creation of a separate province governed by Christians).[86]

The attacks that followed left 40 Christians dead and displaced more than 12,000 from their homes within a matter of weeks.[87] The killings were accompanied by the bombing of Christian dwellings in Mosul, as well as threatening graffiti in Christian neighborhoods with messages such as “get out or die,” and anti-Christian messages disseminated by loudspeakers mounted on cars, threatening Christians if they did not leave.[88]

Representatives from the various communities have traded accusations of responsibility and motives. Some Arab and Christian representatives have pointed the finger at KRG responsibility or at least complicity, pointing out that Kurdish-dominated security forces were in charge of security in the area the attacks took place, and suggesting that the murder campaign was designed to undermine confidence in the central government’s security forces.[89] From this perspective, the attacks created an opportunity for the KRG to appear benevolent before the Christian community and the world by subsequently providing shelter, security, and financial assistance to those who fled the attacks into Kurdistan, strengthening the Kurdish hand in any upcoming referendum or election: After the Iraqi central government promised the equivalent of about US$127 to each displaced family, KRG Finance Minister Aghajan offered each family $212.[90] Aghajan also created an extensive refugee housing program throughout the Christian areas. In Karamlesh, he purchased land from the local Chaldean church and erected prefabricated housing units.

As evidence of Kurdish involvement, proponents of this theory point to the fact that the attacks happened in the part of Mosul relatively free from insurgent activity and controlled by the Iraqi army, which was dominated by a high percentage of Kurdish officers in that area. Some of the killings happened in areas secured by Iraqi army checkpoints and, in some cases, in close proximity to them, leading some to believe that Kurdish officers or their proxies had a hand in the attacks.[91] Kurdish authorities have rejected these assertions and accused Sunni Arab groups of having carried out the attacks to sow intercommunal tensions.[92] In a rare disavowal, the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organization comprising a number of insurgent groups including al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, has denied responsibility for the killings.[93] More recently, Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman blamed militias loyal to Prime Minister al-Maliki for being behind the violence.[94] None of these allegations has been backed up by clear and convincing evidence.

What is clear, however, is that the attacks were systematic and widespread. Human Rights Watch interviewed family members of seven Christian victims murdered between late August and early October 2008. While other Christians have since returned to Mosul, these families remained in Christian villages in the Nineveh Plains, too fearful to return to their homes in the city. Some witnessed the murders themselves; others spoke to witnesses who saw the perpetrators kill their loved ones. Their accounts suggest an orchestrated and targeted campaign of violence intended to have maximum impact in devastating the community.

Based on these interviews, Human Rights Watch found no evidence suggesting that Kurds were directly involved in that campaign of violence against Christians. According to the witnesses, the gunmen spoke fluent Iraqi Arabic, which appeared to be their mother tongue (in contrast to Kurds, whose native language is Kurdish, but speak Arabic as a second language). The assailants had an Arab appearance and dress, and made it clear that they were attacking Christians on religious grounds. For example, one of the victims, mechanic Afnan Daoud Saeb al-Hadad, answered his door at 10:30 a.m. on September 28 in Mosul. A masked man demanded that al-Hadad show him his identification. When al-Hadad asked who the person was, the masked man responded in Arabic, with a Mosul accent, “Don’t be afraid, Ummu [uncle], I am with the secret police.” After checking his identification, the masked man asked al-Hadad whether he was a Christian, to which al-Hadad said yes. The perpetrator said, “Then I must kill you because you are a Christian.” The perpetrator then fired several shots from an Iraqi-made 9mm Tariq pistol into al-Hadad’s lower body, killing him. His family remained in Mosul for a week, until the funeral, and then fled to Qaraqosh.[95]

In a second case, on October 7, assailants armed with AK-47s approached Amjad Hadi Petrous, a builder, at a construction site where he was working in Mosul. They asked him, “Are you a Christian?” He responded, “Yes, what is it that you want?” The gunmen shot Petrous, killing him instantly. The perpetrators then fatally shot his 20-year-old son, Wusam, also working at the site, with two bullets to his neck and cheek. The family had received no direct threats or warning prior to the incident, although a few days earlier two men acting suspiciously fled his Christian neighborhood after a neighbor fired off warning shots.[96]

A few weeks earlier, on August 28, Siham Alhad’s husband, Nafa’t Basheer Mikha, 63, left home for his shop; it was the last time she would see him alive. Three nights later his body was found in a trash heap with four bullet wounds in his head and neck. Similar to the other families Human Rights Watch spoke with, they had not received any direct warnings or threats prior to the murder, although the family said that other Christians in the neighborhood had received threatening cellphone text messages and bullets in envelopes left on doorsteps. Mikha had no outstanding debts and he was a well-respected member of his community. The family believes he was killed because he was a Christian. Less than two weeks later, at about 8 a.m. on September 10, an assailant killed the couple’s son, Rayan, at his bicycle repair shop in Mosul. The shop’s location—between two security checkpoints—made it difficult for the perpetrator to gain access to the shop without passing through a checkpoint. Although the family said there are witnesses, no one has dared to speak, out of fear. The rest of the family fled to Qaraqosh and have no plans to return to Mosul. Siham Alkhad said, “Our friends used to advise us, ‘Why don’t you leave, things are getting unsafe—why don’t you go somewhere else?’ and we used to reply, ‘We don’t have any disputes with anyone, so why should we leave?’”[97]

In another incident, an assailant killed a 46-year-old Christian man (name withheld at his family’s request) in his garment shop in Mosul on October 4 at 1:45 p.m. As customers browsed in his small shop in the Sarray market, an unmasked bearded man stood at the doorway, said nothing, and shot the shopkeeper as he sat at his desk. After shooting him six times, the perpetrator calmly strolled away. His wife and four children fled Mosul after his funeral, four days later, for Qaraqosh.[98]

In early September, kidnappers who appeared to be Arab abducted Tariq Qattam, 66, from his mechanic shop. After two or three days the kidnappers called, speaking in a non-Mosul but local Arabic accent, and asked the family for a $200,000 ransom in order to release Qattam unharmed. After negotiations, the amount was dropped a week later to $20,000. The family delivered the money to the kidnappers, who promised to release Qattam in an hour or two.[99] His dead body was discovered the next day.

During the campaign of violence against Christians in Mosul, the Kurdish-dominated security forces controlling the area seemed unable to prevent or stop the attacks.[100] After the spate of killings, Prime Minister al-Maliki replaced Kurdish-dominated army units in Mosul with Arab units and sent in non-Kurdish police forces from Baghdad.[101]

In October Iraq’s Ministry of Human Rights created a committee to investigate the attacks against Christians in Mosul and their subsequent displacement.[102] The committee visited the affected areas and interviewed survivors. The unpublished report drew no conclusions as to who was behind the attacks, or whether Iraqi security forces could have prevented them, but did state that the evidence indicated that the campaign was “targeted” “systematic” and “pre-arranged.” The report stated that the “killings, targeting and threats were practiced in the eastern side (left) of the city, which was previously the safe side where security forces could move freely and smoothly as opposed to the west side (right) which is considered by the people of Mosul as the domicile of armed groups.”[103]

By mid-November 2008 about 80 percent of displaced Christians were reported to have returned to their homes in and around Mosul, in part because security had improved (although on November 11 unknown gunmen killed two Christian sisters in Mosul), but mainly out of concern for their job security, or for their children’s education.[104]

Killings of Shabaks

Killings of Shabaks have occurred since the start of the US occupation. Since 2004, Shabak groups have reported to the UN that more than 750 of their community have perished in armed attacks.[105] Unlike attacks against Christians, these have generally gone unnoticed by media outside of the country because of the community’s obscurity and lack of an influential diaspora. Shabaks number between 200,000 and 500,000, and live mainly in the Nineveh Plains.[106] Insurgent groups have targeted them because about 70 percent of Shabaks adhere to the Shia sect of Islam, which many Sunni extremists regard as heretical (Sunni insurgents have targeted Shia throughout Iraq, and not just Shia who are members of minority groups): for example the Islamic State of Iraq, an insurgent group then allied to al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, distributed a flyer dated October 16, 2007, in Mosul that described Shabaks as “rejectors” of Islam and asserted that it is “an obligation to kill them and to displace them with no mercy.”[107] Sunni groups have also targeted Shabaks because some Shabaks identify themselves as Kurds, and because insurgents view them as pro-Kurdish. However, recent attacks on Shabak community leaders appear to have a different provenance.

In one of the worst attacks in the Nineveh Plains since 2003, on August 11, 2009, two large flatbed trucks packed with bombs exploded simultaneously at around 5 a.m. in the Shabak village of al-Khazna, which is under the control of Kurdish peshmerga forces. The force of the blast destroyed the town, leaving 65 houses in heaps of rubble mixed with bed frames, mattresses, furniture, and bloodstained pillows. Most villagers were asleep at the time, many of them on their rooftops to escape the summer heat. The final casualty toll was at least 35 killed and almost 200 wounded.[108]

Although no group claimed responsibility, the attack bore similarities to previous attacks by insurgent groups and al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Avas Mohammed Jabar, 55, a farmer in al-Khazna, said he believed both Iraqi and Kurdish officials would use the incident to further their political goals and claim to protect the minorities: “Everyone will start showing their muscles and saying they want to protect us. But everyone is willing to sacrifice us for their goals. We blame the al-Maliki government and the Kurdish government for all the mass killing we face with no mercy.”[109]

His prediction was accurate: in the days that followed, Kurds, Arabs, and minorities traded accusations as to who was behind the attack, with both Kurds and Arabs claiming to be the true protectors of the minorities. Abd al-Wahed Abdullah, a KDP official, accused the al-Hadba coalition of masterminding the al-Khazna attack. He was quoted as saying, “They wanted to kill two birds with one stone: kill Shi`ites and have Kurds blamed.”[110] Meanwhile, Sunni Arab lawmaker Aiz Aldin al-Dawla was quoted as suggesting that the Kurdish government might have covertly carried out this attack and others to convince minority groups in the disputed territories that they are better off under Kurdistan’s mantle: “If not the Kurds, who? Who else has the power, the weapons and the desire to control these areas?”[111] Such accusations are routinely made without evidence to back them up, aggravating an already tense situation.

Shortly after the attack, the Nineveh provincial government called on Prime Minister al-Maliki to send military forces to the area and evict peshmerga from the province. The statement said the attack happened because the provincial and central governments were not fully in control of the province.[112] Shabaks proposed establishing their own community police force of 500 men to protect their villages, but a local Kurdish official dismissed a written request to this effect by Shabaks that had been approved by Prime Minister al-Maliki.[113](Although under international law there is no right for minorities to set up their own security force, the authorities have a duty to provide reasonable protection without discrimination.)

Hunain al-Qaddo, an Iraqi member of parliament representing the Shabaks, told Human Rights Watch that, in his view, the peshmerga have no genuine interest in protecting his community. He said he believes that Kurdish security forces are more interested in controlling Shabaks and their leaders than protecting them. “We are suffering at the hands of the peshmerga,” he said. “Although the [al-Khazna] attack was most likely done by the al Qaeda organization, the Kurdish government is still responsible because they refuse to let the Iraq armed forces protect us and have rejected the idea of allowing us to establish our own Shabak police force to protect our people.”[114]

For their part, Kurdish authorities have refused to recognize Shabaks as a minority, and consider them as a community of Kurdish ethnicity.[115] Those Shabaks who reject this identity pose a direct threat to the Kurdish authorities’ claim that Shabak territory belongs in Kurdistan.

Since 2008, Shabak leaders have increasingly been targeted for attack, with Kurdish forces implicated in some of the incidents. On July 12, 2008, a gunman killed the prominent Mullah Khadim Abbas, leader of the Shabak Democratic Gathering, a group that opposes the incorporation of Shabak villages into the territory of the KRG. As reported by the United Nations, that afternoon Abbas was driving to his home in the town of Barima after a meeting with other community leaders in Bashiqa village. On a desolate highway surrounded by agricultural lands, a vehicle approached his car from behind and opened fire through Abbas’s rear windshield, only 150 meters away from one of the many peshmergaoutposts guarding the area. Three of the seven bullets hit Abbas, killing him instantly. The assailants escaped, without being pursued by the peshmerga. According to Shabak Democratic Gathering members, peshmergaat the outpost claimed to have seen nothing, despite their close proximity to the scene of the murder.[116] In spite of repeated calls by UN officials to bring the killers to justice, no one has been held accountable for the murder.[117] In the days leading up to the murder, a rival Shabak political organization supportive of Kurdish annexation plans phoned Abbas several times with death threats, according to Abbas’s family. Abbas reported the death threats to Kurdish police, who failed to take any action. According to Abbas’s family and members of the Shabak Democratic Gathering, Abbas had infuriated Kurdish authorities by publicly criticizing fellow Shabaks working for the Kurdish agenda and denouncing Kurdish policies that in his view undermined the fabric of the community’s identity.[118]

On January 7, 2009, Shabak lawmaker al-Qaddo said that had he survived an assassination attempt that day in the town of Ali Rish in the Nineveh Plains.[119] He was on his way with other Shabaks to participate in the Shia religious festival of Ashura when his convoy came under fire and his car was hit four times. He escaped injury and others helped him out from his vehicle. “We saw men, some wearing Kurdish security uniforms, shooting at us,” he told Human Rights Watch. “The Kurdish government sees me as an obstacle to their interests. If they manage to get rid of me, the Shabak will lose another leader and the Kurdish government will have an easier time imposing their will on the Shabak and obtaining their lands. That is their objective.”[120]

Qusay Abbass, the Shabak Democratic Party candidate who ultimately won the Shabak quota seat on Nineveh’s provincial council in the January 2009 elections, told Human Rights Watch that the asayesh indicated to him that they were tracking his every move and they could easily harm him if they chose to.[121] When Human Rights Watch met Abbass in Bartella several weeks after the election, he expressed concern about his well-being and that of his family. He said he received a warning from Iraq’s Ministry of Interior that his life was still in danger. His building was packed with an entourage of armed guards and supporters. “The Kurds are disappointed with the election results,” he told us. “I am obviously a target and they will try to liquidate me.”

Months later, on August 16, 2009, an improvised explosive device targeted Abbass’s convoy as he drove to Mosul, lightly injuring him and two of his bodyguards. Abbass told Human Rights Watch that he did not know who was behind the attack and did not want to accuse anyone without further evidence.[122]

On December 17, 2008, unknown assailants kidnapped and killed Shabak leader Haj Asa’ad Issa Abbas in Mosul. [123]

Shabak community leaders have complained about impunity for killings.[124] In one incident, a skirmish between a Shabak farmer and a Kurdish shepherd accused of trespassing escalated into an armed attack bypeshmerga and other Kurds that killed two Shabak brothers, Wazir Ghazi Khalil and Sameer Ghazi Khalil, at the family farm near al-Khazna.[125] According to the family, on May 11, 2007, an argument ensued between the brothers’ uncle and a Kurdish shepherd who refused to leave the farmer’s property; the argument escalated into a fight, which caught the attention of Kurdish passersby. The altercation was the latest in a series of conflicts between Shabaks and internally displaced Kurds living at an abandoned military camp two kilometers away. The Kurds at the camp, after receiving a telephone call about the incident, armed themselves and rushed to the scene. According to relatives of the victims, peshmergabasedat a militaryoutpost 200 meters from the farm assisted in the attack and the group fired multiple shots at the Shabak family from different positions. The gun shots killed the two brothers and injured their mother. The Shabak family could not identify the killers but filed a formal complaint to the police. KDP officials told the family shortly after the attack that they would form an investigative committee to review the incident, but the family has heard nothing since.[126]

Killings of Yazidis

The plight of the Yazidis, similar to that of the Shabaks, has gone largely unnoticed despite devastating attacks. Numbering between 550,000 and 800,000, Yazidis have deep roots in the Nineveh area, living mainly around Sinjar and with smaller communities in the Sheikhan region and in the Kurdish cities of Arbil, Dohuk and Sulaymaniyah.[127] Radical and even moderate Muslims view the Yazidis as “devil-worshippers” because the Peacock Angel, a key figure of piety in their religion, is by some outside interpretations synonymous with the devil of Muslim and Judeo-Christian theology.[128]

In the worst attacks against civilians anywhere in Iraq since 2003, on the evening of August 14, 2007, four simultaneous truck bombings killed more than 300 Yazidis and wounded more than 700 in the Sinjar district communities of Qahtaniya, Jazira, and Azair, and destroyed nearly 400 homes. The explosions were so huge that no trace could be found of dozens of people closest to the explosions who were blown to fragments. Subsequent to the attacks, Kurdish forces moved in and started to control access to Qahtaniya and other Yazidi villages. Surrounding the villages with earthen berms, Kurdish security forces set up checkpoints and created an effective barrier between the Yazidi areas and the Arab villages to the south.[129]

Although there has been no government investigation into the bombings, it is generally accepted that the attack, which resembled similar large-scale bombing attacks elsewhere in the country, was the work of Sunni Arab extremists. In the months before the bombings, relations between Sunnis and Yazidis had soured dramatically, in part because of an April 7, 2007 incident in Bashiqa in which Yazidi men stoned to death a girl from their community, Doaa Khalil Aswad, after she was accused of dating a Sunni man and converting to Islam. The brutal killing of was captured on cellphone videos and quickly spread across the internet.[130]  In apparent retaliation for the killing, the Islamic State of Iraq group urged its followers to kill Yazidis wherever they found them.[131] Two weeks after the stoning, on April 22, armed men stopped a bus travelling from the Mosul Textile Factory to Bashiqa. They checked passengers’ ID cards, ordered non-Yazidis off, then drove the hijacked bus with its remaining 23 Yazidi passengers back to Mosul, where they lined the Yazidis up against a wall and shot them dead, execution style.[132]

Yazidis continue to be targeted for killing in Nineveh. On December 7, 2008, gunmen killed two Yazidis inside their liquor store in northern Mosul.[133] On December 14 a group of armed men entered a house at night in Sinjar and started shooting, killing seven members of a Yazidi family.[134]

On August 13, 2009, two suicide bombers detonated vests packed with explosives in a popular café in the Kalaa neighborhood of Sinjar city that was crowded with young people drinking tea and playing dominoes. The blasts, which came after a series of attacks in the span of a few weeks against other minorities (see above), killed at least 21 people and injured 32.[135] The attack on Sinjar further frightened members of the Yazidi community. In a desperate attempt to protect themselves, Yazidi residents surrounded five of their Nineveh villages with sand barriers after the latest attacks.[136]