Faith
Under Fire.......
Police: 23 wounded in church attack in north Iraq
By YAHYA BARZANJI, Associated Press
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — A car bomb outside a Christian church wounded
23 people on Tuesday morning, police said, as security forces
found and disabled vehicles packed with explosives outside two
other parishes in northern Iraq.
The bombing and the two averted attacks in the northern city of
Kirkuk signal continued violence against Iraqi Christians, nearly
1 million of whom have fled since the war began in 2003.
"The terrorists want to make us flee Iraq, but they will fail,"
said the Rev. Haithem Akram, the priest of one of the churches
that was targeted. "We are staying in our country. The Iraqi
Christians are easy targets because they do not have militias to
protect them. The terrorists want to terrorize us, but they will
fail."
The assault began at 6 a.m., when the car blew up outside the
Syrian Catholic church, severely damaging the church and nearby
houses, said police Col. Taha Salaheddin.
The parish's leader, the Rev. Imad Yalda, was the only person
inside at the time of the blast and was wounded. The 22 other
wounded were people whose nearby homes were hit by the blast, said
Kirkuk police chief Maj. Gen. Jamal Tahir.
Following the blast at the Syrian Catholic church, police
discovered two more car bombs parked outside the Christian
Anglican church and the Mar Gourgis church, both in downtown
Kirkuk.
The ethnically and religiously mixed city of Kirkuk is located 180
miles (290 kilometers) north of Baghdad. Sunni extremists often
target Christians who are seen as unbelievers.
Violence against Christians stepped up late last year, climaxing
in the Oct. 31 siege of a Catholic cathedral in downtown Baghdad
that left 68 dead and scored wounded when al-Qaida suicide bombers
held worshippers hostage for hours before detonating their
explosives belts.
Since then, the Vatican and the U.S. Congress have pleaded for
Iraq's government to do more to protect Christians in Iraq.
A State Department report says Christian leaders estimate that
400,000 to 600,000 Christians remain in Iraq, down from a prewar
level of as high as 1.4 million by some estimates.
___
Associated Press Writers Sameer N. Yacoub and Lara Jakes in
Baghdad contributed to this report.