Of course, these bombings were blamed on al-Qaeda. More bodies are still expected to be found.

The death toll in this week’s suicide bombings in northern Iraq has risen to at least 500, local officials in Nineveh province said Wednesday.

Iraqi Army and Mosul police sources earlier put the number at 260, but said it was likely to rise; 320 were reported wounded.

The Tuesday truck bombs that targeted the villages of Qahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair, in northern Iraq near the border with Syria, were a “trademark al Qaeda event” designed to sway U.S. public opinion against the war, a U.S. general said Wednesday.

The attacks, targeting Kurdish villages of the Yazidi religious minority, were attempts to “break the will” of the American people and show that the U.S. troop escalation — the “surge” — is failing, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon said.

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