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Six churches bombed in Iraq's Bloody Sunday

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  • Six churches bombed in Iraq's Bloody Sunday

    Independent Online, South Africa
    Aug 1 2004

    Six churches bombed in Iraq's Bloody Sunday


    By Edmund Blair

    Baghdad - Car bombs exploded outside at least six Christian churches
    in Iraq on Sunday, killing at least three people and wounding many
    more in an apparently coordinated attack timed to coincide with
    evening prayers.

    "We are expecting a huge number of casualties," an Interior Ministry
    source said. He said there had been four blasts at churches in
    Baghdad and two in Mosul. At least two of the Baghdad blasts were
    suicide car bomb attacks, he said.

    The attacks were the first to target Christian churches during the
    15-month insurgency.

    'We are expecting a huge number of casualties'
    Iraqis said the blasts, which scattered chunks of hot metal and
    shattered stained glass windows, said they feared the attacks were
    designed to stir tensions among Iraq's diverse religious communities.

    "These operations are aimed at creating strife between Christians,
    Shi'as, Sunnis and others, nothing more, nothing less," said Omar
    Hussein, 25, a metalworker near the scene of a blast at the Armenian
    church in central Baghdad.

    Another blast happened about 15 minutes later outside an Assyrian
    church in the same area, mangling cars and sending a loud boom
    reverberating across the neighbourhood. Medics dragged a wounded man
    from a car, his arm almost torn off by the blast.

    An ambulance driver told Reuters that two people were killed in the
    explosion at the Assyrian church and several wounded.

    Police said at least one person was killed in one of the Mosul
    blasts.

    There are about 800,000 Christians in Iraq, most of them in Baghdad.
    There have been a string of attacks in recent weeks on alcohol
    sellers throughout Iraq, the majority of whom are Christians of
    either the Assyrian, Chaldean or Armenian denominations.

    Earlier on Sunday, a suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle outside a
    police station in Mosul, killing at least five people and wounding
    53.

    Witnesses said the Toyota Landcruiser raced towards a police
    checkpoint as guards screamed at the driver to stop. When he didn't,
    they opened fire, killing him. But the car ploughed on and detonated
    about 20 metres from the police station.

    "I was waiting for a taxi when the car approached at high speed,"
    said witness Younis al-Hadidi, 32. "It blew up in the middle of
    everyone."

    Police said four of the five killed were police officers and the
    wounded were both civilians and police. Doctors said many of the
    wounded were badly hurt and the death toll could rise.

    Another suicide car bomb blast outside a U.S. base in Mosul last week
    killed four civilians and wounded a dozen.

    Sunday's bombings came four days after an attack outside a police
    recruiting centre in Baquba, north of Baghdad, killed 70 people.
    Police are frequently targeted by militants who regarded them as
    collaborators with US forces.

    The attacks followed another night of clashes between US forces and
    guerrillas in the rebellious city of Falluja, west of Baghdad, in
    which at least 10 Iraqis died and 35 were wounded, a doctor at the
    main hospital said.

    There were conflicting reports over the fate of three Indians, three
    Kenyans and an Egyptian taken hostage in Iraq this month.

    In Nairobi, Kenyan Foreign Minister Chirau Ali Mwakwere had told a
    news conference that guerrillas had released the seven hostages. But
    the Kuwaiti firm employing the men and an Iraqi mediator who has been
    negotiating their release said they were still in captivity.

    Scores of hostages from two dozen countries have been seized by
    kidnappers in the last four months. Most have been freed but several
    have been executed N at least four by beheading.

    On Saturday, militants led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
    said they had kidnapped two Turkish truck drivers and would behead
    them in 48 hours unless their Turkish employer quit the country.

    Iraqi commandos freed a Lebanese hostage on Sunday, a Lebanese
    Foreign Ministry source said, but there was no word on a fellow
    countryman snatched along with a Syrian driver on Friday.
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