11 Killed in Coordinated Attacks on Iraqi Christians (Mosul)

[papau]

LBN reported that Four churches hit in three neighborhoods in the Iraqi capital - Now we have Mosul attack against the Christians- who total about 800,000, or about 3% of Iraq's 24 million population, live mainly in Baghdad, were free to worship under Saddam Hussein(who officially preached religious tolerance), and who are afraid that religious tolerance is gone in post-Hussein Iraq where Muslims reject Constitution giving minority rights. Indeed the string of attacks in recent weeks on liquor and record stores throughout Iraq, whose owners are often Christians, seem to be "unsolved".


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraqchurch2aug02.story
THE WORLD
11 Killed in Coordinated Attacks on Iraqi Christians (Mosul)
By Henry Chu
Times Staff Writer

August 2, 2004

BAGHDAD — In a wave of coordinated attacks aimed at Iraq's Christian minority, a series of bombs exploded Sunday outside five churches thronged with worshipers here and in the northern city of Mosul, killing 11 people and injuring dozens more.

It was the first time in this nation's 15-month insurgency that Iraqi Christians were targeted, further fraying the country's delicate religious fabric and raising fears of increased sectarian conflict.

Attackers timed some of the blasts for maximum effect, during evening services that attracted hundreds of faithful. Bloodied and dazed, churchgoers spilled onto streets littered with shards of stained glass and splinters of wood as smoke billowed above them.

"I was praying inside the church with all these people when all the windows shattered," said Father Rafael Kutaimi of an Assyrian Catholic church in Baghdad's Karada neighborhood, where a car packed with explosives blew up during the 6 p.m. service. At least a dozen worshipers were wounded.

"They came into a holy place," Kutaimi said of the attackers, as bystanders scurried away from U.S. armored vehicles that had rolled to the scene. "If they're against the Americans, let them kill the Americans. We're all Iraqis, innocent people. I don't know what their goal is."<snip>