Iraqi army reports that multiple suicide bombings aimed at the Yazidis in the country's north have killed at least 175 members of the minority sect and wounded 200 more.
All of Tuesday's attacks on the Yazidi community occurred about 8pm local time in two residential near the town of Qahataniya, 120km west of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city
The news of the attacks was confirmed by Captain Ghanim Riyadh of the Iraqi police and Abdul-Rahman al-Shimri, a senior local official.
Yazidis are a primarily Kurdish sect that worships an angel figure considered to be the devil by some Muslims and Christians.
The have been a frequent target of violence in northern Iraq.
Several shops were set ablaze and apartment buildings were destroyed by Tuesday's explosions.
At least one attacker was driving an explosives-laden fuel truck, but police could not immediately provide more details about the other two blasts.
Kirkuk killings
The bodies of two Yazidi men who had been stoned to death were also found in the northern city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, police said.
They had been kidnapped while they were travelling to Baghdad to sell olives.
Police Brigadier-General Sarhat Qadir said Akbar Hassan and Ayad Khadir had been kidnapped by al-Qaeda-linked fighters
They took them to the predominantly Sunni village of al-Saeeda and ordered the residents to stone them because they were "infidels", police said.
The villagers refused, so the fighters killed the men themselves, Qadir said.