World Magazine
Aug 6 2004

Terror’s next target in Iraq

CHURCH ATTACKS: In the first coordinated assault on one of Iraq’s
most important minorities, Islamist insurgents murder 12 and injure
60 Christians at worship. The success of the interim government’s
response represents the next test of its legitimacy – and of national
unity in post-Saddam Iraq | by Mindy Belz

Most churches in Iraq hold services Sunday evening for a simple
reason: Here, as in the rest of the Muslim world, the Christian
Sabbath is a workday. So the coordinated attacks that struck the
Christian community on Aug. 1 arrived in time for maximum carnage.

At six in the evening – just as most services begin – a car bomb exploded
outside the Armenian church in Karada, a Baghdad neighborhood that
was the heart of the Christian community before and during British
colonial rule and where old-line churches post-Saddam thrive. Minutes
later an explosion rocked the Catholic Syriac Church, also in Karada.
Then, as the Chaldean Church of St. Peter and St. Paul emptied from
evening mass, two blasts hammered the compound. Bombers also struck
Mar Elya church in north Baghdad. At nearly the same time and 220
miles north, two car bombs exploded in central Mosul outside Mar
Polis church.

Glass sprayed into nearby homes, parked cars erupted in flames, and
massive plumes of smoke rose into the air. Fellow worshippers crawled
over the wreckage in search of Bibles, crosses on necklaces, and
other tokens to identify the scattered portions of the dead.
Ambulances and police swarmed. U.S. Army helicopters responded to the
smoke visible miles away, patrolling low overhead what had become – in
less than an instant – a war zone.

Chaldean Catholic priest Faris Toma stood in the wreckage outside his
church where dozens of cars were upended and several propelled into
the sanctuary by the force of the blasts. `We cannot understand why
or how they could do something like this,’ he said. `All we can do is
ask God to give them forgiveness and grant us peace.’

Remarkably, out of hundreds of worshippers attending targeted
churches and the snugly built neighborhoods where they reside, the
attacks killed a dozen people – 10 from Mr. Toma’s church – and injured
about 60. If the deaths were miraculously minimized, the
choreographed stab at Iraq’s Christian minority maximized the fear
factor. More than a year after war ended and insurgency began, it was
the first attack on Christian houses of worship.

Iraqi Christians now feel they are not only a minority but a targeted
minority,’ said Nabil Haj, a U.S. military engineer and
Lebanese-American who attends church in Baghdad. `Even evangelical
practice and preaching is under attack.’

Newer churches in Baghdad say they received threats ahead of the
bombings. At the Christian Missionary Alliance church two blocks from
the Catholic compound, where the worst attack took place, a warning
letter from the `Fallujah Mujahideen’ arrived four days before the
Sunday bombings. Churchgoers told WORLD that they have received a
variety of intimidating messages from militants ever since the
Fallujah siege by U.S. forces in April, linking them to Western
religion and vowing retaliation. Those threats could signal that
Christians – numbering somewhere between 700,000 and 800,000 – are next
up on the terrorists’ target list.

Experts increasingly pinpoint Fallujah and the surrounding Anbar
province as the sending agent behind bombings. The dusty city of
300,000, located in the desert 40 miles west of Baghdad, is a locus
of Saddam loyalists and Islamic fanatics. U.S. forces fought
unsuccessfully – from ground and air – to control the city and rout
opposition elements after Fallujahans killed four U.S. defense
contractors and hung their bodies from a bridge last spring.

Under a controversial pact, U.S. forces have agreed not to enter
Fallujah at all, leaving local militias and other militants in the
hands of former Saddam loyalists fueled by anti-American clerics. In
five months, the 4th Marine Regiment’s Second Battalion has engaged
in over 200 firefights in the area, absorbing close to 300 casualties
while killing more than 1,000 guerrillas, according to former
assistant secretary of defense F.J. Bing West, who is writing a book
on the fight for Fallujah.

An insurgency with churchgoers and Bible believers at its bullseye
comes as many churches, particularly those launched after the war,
are straining at the highest points on the growth chart. Just weeks
before the bombing, Christian Missionary Alliance pastor Ghassan
Thomas told WORLD his Sunday evening services – which began only a year
ago with less than 50 attendants – attract more than 450 worshippers.
The church meets in an already expanded house and is looking for its
third home. Mr. Thomas was administering communion Sunday evening
when the blasts at the Catholic complex two streets over shook the
Alliance building, knocking books from shelves and causing lights to
flutter. `It shook the whole building,’ he said, `and people started
screaming and leaving.’

How many Christians will come back is the question church leaders are
asking themselves. `Many people can no longer go to church regularly,
they are forced by bombings to meet in homes’ one pastor said. `With
this explosion many Christians are planning to leave Iraq.’

(In the aftermath, few Iraqi Christians who spoke to WORLD were
willing to be identified in print, obviously fearing for their
safety. Underscoring the concern, an Iraqi employee of The New York
Times covering the church bombings had his name withheld from the
paper’s report.)

Church leaders find themselves in an unhappy predicament: posting
guards and setting up walls around facilities where they have worked
hard to be good neighbors.

At St. Peter and St. Paul church, Catholic groundskeepers bolted
gates normally left ajar. At the Alliance church, workers hauled an
oversized flatbed truck to one end of the street as a barrier. At the
other end, they posted guards next to a barricade of bricks, logs,
and cardboard barrels. At St. George’s Anglican Church, an
evangelical congregation whose building was renovated through joint
efforts of Iraqi Christians and U.S. chaplains, signs advertising
English-language services came down.

At the Presbyterian church in Mosul, one of Iraq’s longer-standing
congregations started by missionaries in 1820, both pastor and
congregation have found themselves under increasing vigilance. Last
month the pastor’s own wedding was moved north to an affiliate church
in Dohuk after threats from a local mosque to disrupt his services.
Twelve guards stood watch outside during the marriage ceremony, even
after it was relocated. During the Sunday blasts, Iraqi police
defused a bomb near the Presbyterian church after two bombs went off
outside Mar Polis, a traditional Aramaic-speaking church in central
Mosul, killing one and wounding at least 15.

Christians have lived in Iraq for 2,000 years. The Assyrian Church of
the East is the oldest in Iraq; it was founded in a.d. 33. Chaldeans,
many of whom continue to speak and/or worship in Aramaic, the
language of Jesus, are the majority among the descendants of early
Mesopotamian Christians. Orthodox churches blend with Eastern-rite
Catholics who recognize the pope but maintain some measure of their
own autonomy – all in all, making for a liturgical soup of Armenian
Catholics and Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Catholics and Syrian
Orthodox, along with Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic communities,
Anglicans, Baptists, and evangelicals. Christians reportedly numbered
1 million before the 1991 Gulf War, when many left for the West. Now
their numbers are around 800,000.

Since the most recent war, churches are growing in both number and
size. More importantly, they are acquiring a multiethnic face, as
Assyrians and Chaldeans, Kurds and Turkomans, even former Baathists
and an occasional Muslim convert – freed from the police state – can
worship together. Clergymen, too, have formed transethnic and
transdenominational ties because for the first time in memory they
can travel the country freely and meet together. A pastor’s
conference last spring attracted dozens of clergymen, including many
recent returnees.

Once isolated congregations also are learning to work in partnership
with one another and with parachurch groups. The St. Peter and St.
Paul church, which also includes a seminary and health clinic, has
been a focus for community outreach and charity. Given the facility’s
extensive damage and security concerns, however, outreach may have to
wait.

Muslims and Christians showed signs of solidarity in the
traditionally mixed neighborhoods of Karada and elsewhere. After all,
mosques were first bombed months ago. One local glass shop offered to
repair church windows at wholesale. Muslim neighbors showed up at
hospitals to check on burn victims. Christian clergy visited Muslim
homeowners nearby to see whether they suffered damage.

Iraq’s Shiite and Sunni leaders issued public statements against the
attacks. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani denounced the `criminal campaign
targeting Iraq’s unity, stability, and independence.’ The Association
of Sunni Muslim Scholars condemned the attacks as `totally remote
from any religious or humanitarian norms.’

Iraq’s national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said Christians
should not interpret the attacks as a warning to leave Iraq. `We
can’t afford to lose any of them, to be quite honest with you,’ Mr.
Rubaie said. `Iraq will be a big, big loser. This blow is going to
unite Iraqis.’

Government leaders have increased awareness about the importance of
the Christian minority, which has a strong business presence, higher
education levels, and more open and steady ties to the West.

Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh promised beefed-up security near
churches. He said authorities would hunt down those responsible. `The
Christian community in Iraq is respected and valued,’ he told
reporters. `They are loyal Iraqi citizens, and any attack on them is
an attack on all decent Iraqis,’ adding, `We are determined to defeat
the terrorists who so brutally seek to disrupt social peace.’

With singed cars as a reminder and fear as a companion, Christian
survivors are hard-pressed to find a silver lining in the week’s
death toll. But many may now more purposefully join Muslims, truck
drivers, government leaders, and U.S. soldiers who – left to puzzle
together the who, what, when, and where – more urgently want to know
how to stop the killings. – –

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress