Two More Churches Bombed in Iraq January 9th

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) -- Two car bombs exploded outside two churches in the volatile northern city of Kirkuk on Wednesday, police said, the latest in a wave of attacks on Christian targets in Iraq this week.

Police said three people were wounded in the attacks on the churches in central and northern Kirkuk, a multi-ethnic oil-producing city 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad. The buildings also suffered minor damage.

The spiritual leader of Iraq's Catholics said on Tuesday that a recent wave of bomb attacks on churches in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul was aimed at showing Iraq was not at peace rather than singling out Christians for persecution.

Iraq's Christians make up about 3 percent of the country's 27 million, mostly Muslim, population. A number of Christian clerics have been kidnapped or killed in Iraq and Christians forced to flee their homes.

In a single hour on Sunday attackers bombed two churches, a convent and a church-run orphanage in the northern city of Mosul and three churches and a convent in Baghdad, the Chaldean patriarch of Baghdad Emmanuel III Delly, said.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told the Vatican's ambassador on Tuesday that his government was doing its best to protect Iraq's Christians and that all Iraq's religious sects were equally affected by violence.

Seven Churches in Iraq were bombed On Sunday January 6th

AINA) -- At five o' clock today, a few hours after the bombs had detonated; one of the churches in central Baghdad held an Epiphany mass.

"We have decided to continue to go to church, let them bomb us, we've had enough. It's our country too. If they want to wipe us out, they'll be able to do it anyway. I will die proud," said my colleague and friend, Daniel, angry but decisive, when I eventually got hold of him.

The church Daniel goes to has survived with a few minor scrapes and, according to reports, none of the congregation has been injured.

Mosul's Chaldean archbishop, Farac Raho, confirmed on the TV channel Ishtar that four churches have been bombed in his hometown. He also stated that the attackers have used both car bombs and explosive charges.

"I'm very upset. That the explosions went off at the same time proves that this was part of a plan. Both our Moslem brothers and we had just celebrated Eid and Christmas at the same time this year and everything went well. But the opposition have never really stopped pointing their weapons at us. Now they must stop attacking Iraq's original people and aim their weapons against their true enemies. Iraq's government must immediately act against violence directed towards us Christians.

I called an Assyrian journalist, who previously lived in Mosul but has now fled to Syria, and asked what he thought about the archbishop's comment.

"He has it completely correct. They tricked the Christians; they let them celebrate Christmas in peace, made them believe that the Islamic community had accepted the birth of Jesus, when it was only so they wouldn't disrupt Eid, their own religious festival. For me this is no surprise. Fundamentalists have decided to drive us to flee once and for all. Instead of aiming their weapons at the Americans they are aiming them at us. This is not the first time. The USA and the rest of the world can no longer close their eyes to this attempt at ethnic and religious cleansing. There is genocide at work in front of the whole world and no one intervenes.

"Do you think that we can really call this genocide?" I asked him carefully.

"What is genocide if not a wiping out, if all the Christians are forced to flee, then they are wiped out, at least from what has been our homeland for more than five thousand years." He answered angrily.

Iskander Bikasha, one of the editors of Ankawa.com, has been in contact with Iraq many times today.

"Many believed that it had become a little safer for non-Moslems in Iraq but now even those who held that hope have begun to waver. It's not just churches that are being bombed but even monasteries and convents. I spoke with one of our correspondents a few minutes ago and he described, amongst other things, a heart-breaking interview he had with a terrified nun.

"It's a war but we are not at war. We are not a part of this war. We carry no weapons. We kill no one. We turn the other cheek. A day doesn't go by without us hearing reports about Assyrians, also called Chaldeans and Syrians, who have been killed."

By Nuri Kino

Nuri Kino is a journalist in Sweden specializing in investigative journalism, and is one of the most highly awarded journalists in Europe (CV). He is an Assyrian from Turkey. His documentary, Assyriska: a National team without a Nation, was awarded The Golden Palm at the 2006 Beverly Hills Film festival.