As strange as it is horrific. AQ is suspected, but the victims weren’t Shiites, they were Yazidis. What beef could Al Qaeda possibly have with them? Here’s your answer. No one’s sure if the victim in that case did or didn’t convert to Islam but the jihadis are operating on the assumption that she did. They took one atrocious measure of revenge against the Yazidis back in April, which was thought to have been the end of it. Then, last week, they took another, kidnapping two Yazidi men en route to Baghdad and stoning them to death. Their bodies were recovered today.

Now this. Petraeus said a mini-Tet was coming. Is this it? Or just another very bloody chapter of Iraqi Hatfields and McCoys?

Scores of civilians were killed or wounded on Tuesday evening in a string of blasts that took place near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, a security source said.

“Two cars rigged with explosives simultaneously detonated in Siba Sheikh Khidr housing compound, west of Mosul, killing 175 civilians and wounding over 200,” the source, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

The source added “the housing compound, the largest in Sinjar district, also came under a mortar attack following the double explosion, leaving scores killed or wounded.”

Meanwhile, two more explosions occurred in the nearby Kar Izir area, 35 km south of Sinjar, killing and wounding dozens of people and causing many buildings to collapse, the same source said.

Local EMS tells NPR that as many as 500 could be wounded.

Update: The two villages hit by the blasts were Al-Khataniyah and Al-Adnaniyah, according to the AFP. One of the bombs was rigged to a fuel tanker.