Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

·The death toll rose sharply to 175 from four suicide car bombings near Mosul Tuesday.
·The coordinately bombings attack was one of the deadliest attacks since the Iraq war.
·The four bombings apparently targeted residents from Iraq's Yazidi religious minority.

Iraqi policemen inspect the wreckage of a car used in a car bomb attack on a road in south Kirkuk, 255 kms (160 miles) north of Baghdad. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)
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    MOSUL, Iraq, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- The death toll rose sharply to 175 from four suicide car bombings in two towns near Iraqi northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, local police told Xinhua. A further 200 others were injured while the four bombings apparently targeted residents from Iraq's Yazidi religious minority west of Mosul, a police source said on condition of anonymity.

    Two suicide car bombs successively went off in a residential district in the town of Baag, some 120 km southwest of Mosul while another suicide car bomb rocked a residential district in the town of Sinjar, some 100 km northwest of Mosul. The fourth one exploded in a busy market near Sinjar.

    The four bombings left at least 175 people killed and 200 others injured, the source said.

    The Yazidis are primarily ethnic Kurds and mostly live near Mosul in Iraq.

    The coordinately bombings attack was one of the deadliest attacks since the Iraq war broke out in 2003.

    On Nov. 23 of 2006, a series of bombings and mortar rounds attacks in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in Baghdad killed more than 200 people.

    Mosul, 400 km north of Baghdad, is located in the Sunni-predominated province of Nineveh which is plagued by violent Sunni insurgency and al-Qaida attacks.