Iraq blasts kill at least 200

At least 200 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in Iraq following co-ordinated suicide fuel tanker bombings blamed on al-Qaeda.

The incident, one of the worst since the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003 occurred in the Yazidi residential compounds in the Kahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair areas near the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, close to the Syrian border.

Five trucks carrying bombs were detonated in the villages of Kahtaniya and al-Jazeera. Four entered a crowded bus station and exploded as soon as they were inside Khahtaniya while the fifth was detonated in a residential area of al-Jazeera.

The Yazidis, members of a pre-Islamic Kurdish sect who live in northern Iraq and Syria, appear to have been the target of the attacks, officials said.

Rescue workers searched for bodies in the rubble of dozens of buildings destroyed in the densely populated residential areas west of the city of Mosul. Authorities have imposed a total curfew in the Sinjar area, which is close to the Syrian border.

Authorities said it would be impossible to establish a final death toll for now as many bodies are still buried in the rubble of up to 30 destroyed houses. TV images showed medics treating badly-wounded victims, many of which were children.

US military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said: "We're looking at al-Qaeda as the prime suspect."

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said: "These are particularly important and testing times for the Iraqi government but they underline the importance of the international community continuing to give this democratically elected government our support.

"Terrorist violence does not hold the answer to Iraq's future. A stable future for Iraq depends on a strong and inclusive elected government, and an end to sectarian violence, and economic and social development."

The US condemned the bombings as "barbaric attacks on innocent civilians," and extended its sympathies to families of the victims.

In a statement, the White House said: "Extremists continue to show to what lengths they will go to stop Iraq from becoming a stable and secure country.

"We will continue to work with the Iraqi government and the Iraqi Security Forces to stabilise the country and beat back these vicious and heartless murderers."

The attacks came just hours after gunmen dressed in local security uniforms kidnapped Iraq's Deputy Oil Minister Abdel Jabar al-Wagga in a brazen daylight raid on a well-protected Baghdad compound.

This year, the US has sent an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq, moving them to small neighbourhood outposts from major bases in a bid to reduce sectarian violence in the capital and surrounding provinces.

Ten military personnel have died in the past two days, including five in a helicopter which crash near al-Taqaddum air base outside Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad.

In November 2006, six car bombs in different parts of northeast Baghdad's sprawling Shi'ite slum of Sadr City killed 202 people and wounded 250, while multiple car bombs around the capital killed 191 around Baghdad in April.

In the worst single attack this year, a truck packed with explosives blew up in a market in the northern town of Tuz Khurmato in July, killing 150 people and wounding 250.

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