Five Iraqi Churches Attacked in Bombings

Iraqis push parked vehicle away from the site of two car bombs that exploded in quick succession near two Baghdad churches, causing many casualties. At least five car bombs exploded in quick succession outside churches in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul, in an apparently targeted assault on Iraq ‘s influential Christian minority, police said. (Photo: AFP / Saeed Khan)

A Christian woman screams as she chases after the body of a blast victim that was found Monday, as it is carried away in a blanket past charred vehicles left after a bomb blast outside of a church in Baghdad, Iraq Monday Aug. 2, 2004. Assailants triggered a coordinated series of explosions outside five churches in Baghdad and Mosul during evening services Sunday, killing 11 people and wounding more than 50 in the first major assault on Iraq’s Christian minority since the 15-month-old insurgency began. (Photo: AP / Khalid Mohammed)

Iraqi men try to remove the car in which their brother died during Sunday’s bomb blast outside of a church in Baghdad, Iraq Monday Aug. 2, 2004. (Photo: AP / Hadi Mizban)

In the first postwar attack on the nation’s Christian minority, terrorists targeted four churches in the Iraqi capital and one in the northern city of Mosul yesterday. Bombs exploded outside a church during a Sunday evening service in central Baghdad, killing at least 11 and injuring hundreds, according to witnesses.

In Baghdad, according to eye witness accounts car bombs exploded outside the Armenian Church, not far the Chaldean Rite Catholic Cathedral of St. Joseph, the Mar Eliya (St Elijah) of Heyra Church in Hay al-Amin in New Baghdad, the Syriac-Catholic Church of Our Lady of Salvation and finally the Chaldean Church of the Disciples Mar Putros and Mar Polos (Sts Peter and Paul) near the Chaldean Catholic Seminary in al-Dura.

At roughly the same time, a car bomb and grenade attack hit the Chaldean Church of St Paul in Mosul, about 220 miles north of Baghdad. The car bomb placed near a power generator killed one person wounding 50. The explosion took place at 7 pm local time (4 pm GMT).

The Russian Orthodox Church said the attacks were an attempt to spark a religious conflict.

Kenneth Chan kenneth@christianpost.com

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