Explosions strike 2 churches in Mosul
International Herald Tribune, France
Dec 8 2004
MOSUL, Iraq — Gunmen bombed two churches in the tense city of Mosul
on Tuesday, stoking fears of ethnic and sectarian unrest ahead of an
election next month.
The insurgent war of attrition against U.S. forces and their Iraqi
supporters claimed another American life in Baghdad, taking the U.S.
combat death toll to 1,000 since last year’s invasion.
At least four Iraqi National Guard soldiers were also killed in two
incidents, one in the capital and another farther south.
No one was killed nor, it appeared, wounded, in the bombings in
Mosul. Smoke billowed from one of the northern city’s Armenian
churches and one of its oldest Chaldean churches was ablaze and a
wall shattered. The attackers were not identified.
In a city of 1.2 million where the two main Sunni Muslim communities,
Arabs and Kurds, are already on edge following a rout of U.S.-trained
police last month by Sunni Arab insurgents, the strikes were the
latest in a series of attacks on Christians.
The small Christian community of about 650,000, or 3 percent of the
population, has suffered from a surge in militant Islam since the
fall of Saddam Hussein’s secular regime. Some people have fled or
closed down traditional businesses, notably selling liquor, which
flourished in Iraq despite a Muslim religious ban.
At least one Christian leader has been quoted recently as saying he
would form an armed militia to protect the community.
“There were two or three families in the church,” a frightened
worshiper from Mosul’s ancient Tahira Chaldean church said after the
attack on the white stone building, parts of which are said to date
from the seventh century. “Gunmen came in, took the guard’s weapon
and a couple of mobile phones. Then they made everybody leave the
church. After that there was an explosion that did a lot of damage,”
said the man, who asked not to be named.
Christians have been attacked several times in the past four months.
Coordinated car bombings, four in Baghdad and one in Mosul, killed at
least 12 people in August; five Baghdad churches were bombed on Oct.
16 at the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. At least eight
people were killed in two church bombings in the capital on Nov. 8,
and a car bomber attacked police guarding the hospital where the
wounded had been taken.
The unidentified American soldier killed on Tuesday was on patrol in
Baghdad when guerrillas opened fire with rifles. Earlier in the day,
the Pentagon had issued a revised combat casualty toll of 999 and
the death thus took the toll since the invasion on March 20 last year
to 1,000. A further 275 U.S. troops have died in accidents or other
incidents not classified as being killed in action.
The American death toll rose sharply last month during the U.S.
assault on Sunni insurgents in the city of Falluja. At least 71
Americans were killed there.
A total of 9,765 U.S. troops have been wounded.
No official figures are available for the numbers of Iraqi dead.
Estimates have ranged from about 14,000 to tens of thousands of
civilians and about 5,000 troops in the war.
Separately, a two-day military court hearing closed Tuesday into the
case of a U.S. soldier charged with murdering an Iraqi man and making
a false statement regarding the incident.
Specialist Brent May, 22, of Salem, Ohio, is charged with the August
murder of an Iraqi civilian in Baghdad’s impoverished Sadr City,
the scene of fierce clashes between American-led coalition forces
and Shiite rebels allied to the firebrand cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
May also faces one charge of falsifying an official statement, or
deposition, regarding the alleged murder.