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Zarqawi blamed for Iraqi church attacks

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  • Zarqawi blamed for Iraqi church attacks

    Independent Online, South Africa
    Aug 2 2004

    Zarqawi blamed for Iraqi church attacks



    Baghdad - Iraq's Christian minority became the latest target of
    violence in Iraq on Sunday when explosions killed at least 10 people
    outside churches here and in the northern city of Mosul.

    And on Monday, Iraq's national security adviser said the attacks
    carry the hallmarks of suspected al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

    "There is no shadow of a doubt that this bears the blueprint of
    Zarqawi," Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told Reuters, adding the attacks on
    Sunday evening were an attempt to drive Iraq's minority Christians
    out of the country.

    "Zarqawi and his extremists are basically trying to drive a wedge
    between Muslims and Christians in Iraq."

    'There is no shadow of a doubt that this bears the blueprint of
    Zarqawi'
    Rubaie said Iraq's national security council would hold an emergency
    meeting on Monday to discuss the blasts that hit at least five
    churches, including four in Baghdad.

    Six car bombs blew up in Baghdad and Mosul churches in the first
    attack against Christian places of worship since US-led forces
    toppled Saddam Hussein in April 2003. Fifty people were wounded.

    Six people died when one of the bombs exploded inside a huge church
    and seminary compound in southern Baghdad, causing massive damage,
    police and medics said.

    A rescue worker at the Al-Dura compound said he pulled out six dead
    women and two dead children from the debris.

    The bomb exploded as worshippers were leaving evening mass, an AFP
    correspondent at the scene said.

    'It's a crime. It's Sunday, we were at mass'
    A car was detonated by a suicide bomber outside an Armenian church in
    Baghdad's upmarket district of Karada, said policeman Haidar Abdul
    Hussein.

    Minutes later, a second car bomb exploded next to a Catholic Syriac
    church.

    Police reported a fourth explosion outside a Chaldean Catholic church
    in the east of Baghdad.

    "It's a crime. It's Sunday, we were at mass. There were a lot of
    women and children," said Bishop Raphael Kutami at the Syriac church
    in Baghdad.

    Another priest said the explosion occurred as people were leaving the
    church and the number of wounded was unkown.

    In Mosul, 370 kilometres north of the capital, two car bombs exploded
    in the early evening outside the Mar Polis church in the central
    Mohandessin neighborhood, Major Mohammed Omar Taha said.

    Medics there said one person was killed and 15 were wounded in the
    bombings.

    In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said an explosion went off
    in the evening in a Christian neighborhood, but there were no
    casualties because most people were at church.

    A Vatican spokesperson described the attacks as "terrible and very
    worrying because it is the first time that Christian places of
    worship have been targeted in Iraq."

    "It seems that someone wants to increase tension by trying to hit all
    groups, the churches included," said the spokesman, the Reverend Ciro
    Benedettini.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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