Coordinated Blasts on Iraqi Christian Churches Kill 11

Amid a rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism, Iraqi Christians fear being targeted as suspected collaborators with the U.S.

BY: Omar Sinan
Associated Press

August 2, BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP)--Assailants launched the first major attack on Iraq's minority Christians since the insurgency began, triggering a coordinated series of explosions outside five churches in Baghdad and Mosul that killed 11 people and injured more than 50.

Authorities disarmed a sixth bomb outside a Baghdad church on Sunday, as fears grew in Iraq's 750,000-member Christian minority that they might be targeted as suspected collaborators with American forces amid a rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism.

"What are the Muslims doing? Does this mean that they want us out?" Brother Louis, a deacon at Our Lady of Salvation, asked as he cried outside the damaged Assyrian Catholic church.

Separate violence beginning the night before killed 24 people, including an American soldier, and wounded dozens more. The toll included a suicide car bombing outside a Mosul police station that killed five people and wounded 53, and clashes in Fallujah between U.S. troops and insurgents that killed 12 Iraqis and wounded 39 others.

The wave of explosions at Christian churches at least four of them car bombings began after 6 p.m. as parishioners gathered inside their neighborhood churches for services. The blasts shattered stained-glass windows and sent churchgoers screaming into the streets.

The explosions came just minutes apart and hit four churches in Baghdad two in Karada, one in the Dora neighborhood and one in New Baghdad. A fifth church was hit in Mosul, about 220 miles north of the capital. The attacks did not appear to be suicide bombings, U.S. military and Iraqi officials said.

The Baghdad church attacks killed 10 people and injured more than 40 others, according to a U.S. military statement. The Mosul blast killed one person and injured 11 others, police Maj. Fawaz Fanaan said.

''This (attack) isn't against Muslims or Christians, this is against Iraq,'' Deputy Foreign Minister Labid Abawi told The Associated Press.

The Vatican called the attacks ''terrible and worrisome,'' said spokesman Rev. Ciro Benedettini.

Muslim clerics condemned the violence and offered condolences to the Christian community.

''This is a cowardly act and targets all Iraqis,'' Abdul Hadi al-Daraji, spokesman for radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, told Al-Jazeera television.

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