Toll Rises to 250 in Iraq Blasts

Officials pushed the death toll of attacks on two Iraqi towns up to 250 today, as rescuers located more victims amid rubble. “It looks like a nuclear bomb hit the villages,” an officer told the New York Times of yesterday's blasts in an area populated by a Kurdish sect often targeted by militant Sunni Muslims.

The attacks came on one of the bloodiest days in recent months, as bombs detonated across the country and a helicopter crash left five Americans dead. As Iraqi politicians prepared for a "crisis summit," gunmen kidnapped oil-ministry officials from their homes, a move the oil minister said was designed to disrupt government work and upend political progress. (More Kurds stories.)