Sky News, UK
Aug 1 2004
BLASTS ROCK CHURCHES
At least four car bombs have exploded in quick succession outside
churches in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul killing at least
12 people.
The attacks appear to be a targeted assault on Iraq’s influential
Christian minority, police said.
The first car was detonated by a suicide bomber near an Armenian
church in Baghdad’s upmarket district of Karada, said policeman
Haidar Abdul Hussein.
Minutes later, a second car bomb exploded near a Catholic church.
Officials at the Ibn al-Nafeez hospital said 15 people had been
admitted with injuries following the attacks.
Another police officer at the scene said there were casualties, but
was unable to specify how many.
Ambulances ferried the wounded away and firemen battled the flames
and smoke.
In Mosul, 370 kilometres (230 miles) north of the capital, two car
bombs exploded outside a church in the early evening outside the Mar
Polis church in the central Mohandessin neighbourhood, said Major
Mohammed Omar Taha.
“There are casualties, but we don’t know if anyone was killed,” he
said.