IRAQ WRAPUP 3-Churches bombed, US deaths in Iraq mount
By Maher al-Thanoon

MOSUL, Iraq, Dec 7 (Reuters) – Gunmen bombed two churches in the
tense Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, fuelling fears of ethnic and
sectarian unrest ahead of an election next month.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, a fierce opponent of the war,
told Iraq’s prime minister in Moscow he feared the country could
break up and said planned Jan. 30 elections were unimaginable.

U.S. troops suffered their 1,000th combat death in Iraq on Tuesday when
U.S. soldier was killed in Baghdad. The Pentagon also issued figures
for a record monthly U.S. death toll in Iraq. It said 136 American
soldiers were killed last month. The previous highest was 135 in April.

At least four Iraqi National Guard troopers were also killed in two
incidents, one in the capital and another further south.

“I cannot imagine how elections can be organised under a full
occupation of the country by foreign troops,” Putin told Iraq’s
U.S.-backed interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

“I also cannot imagine how you on your own will be able to restore
the situation in the country and stop it from breaking up.”

Allawi reaffirmed the election date of Jan. 30 but raised the prospect
of troubled regions taking two or three weeks longer to vote —
a proposal that could not immediately be checked with election
officials and would break a U.N. deadline of Jan. 31 for the ballot.

A new CIA assessment, reported by the New York Times, gave a gloomy
picture of Iraq’s future, seeing further insecurity if the government
fails to assert itself and promote prosperity.

No one was killed nor, it appeared, injured, 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 latest in a series
of attacks on Christians was grist to the mill of those who believe
Iraq risks slipping into civil war.

At least 16 Kurdish peshmerga fighters were killed in a suicide car
bomb attack in Mosul on Saturday. U.S. troops have turned to the Kurds,
largely autonomous in the nearby mountains and with well-trained
fighting forces, to help police Mosul.

SUNNI DISCONTENT

Sunni Arabs make up about 20 percent of Iraq’s population but have
dominated the country for decades, including under fellow Sunni
Saddam Hussein. With the election set to transfer power to the 60
percent Shi’ite Muslim majority, many Sunnis are unhappy and some
have called for a boycott of the vote.

They argue that violence by insurgents led, apparently by former
Saddam loyalists and some foreign-inspired Islamists, will make it
impossible to vote safely in much of Sunni northern and western Iraq,
including much of Baghdad.

The small Christian community of about 650,000 or some 3 percent of
the population has suffered from an upsurge in militant Islam since
the fall of Saddam’s secular regime. Some 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 saying he
would form an armed militia to protect the community.

“There were two or three families in the church,” one frightened
worshipper from Mosul’s ancient Tahira Chaldean church told Reuters
after the attack on the white stone building, some of which is said
to date back to the 7th 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 for fear of intimidation.

Christians, possibly targeted partly because radical Muslims link
them with the “crusader” invaders from America and Europe, have been
attacked several times in the past four months.

Coordinated car bombings, four in Baghdad and one in Mosul, killed
at least 12 in August and five Baghdad churches were bombed on the
Oct. 16 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.

U.S. CASUALTIES

An election that provides a legitimate Iraqi government that can
defend itself is a prerequisite for U.S. President George W. Bush to
declare the invasion a success and bring troops home.

International voting experts will meet in Canada this month to try
to find a way of monitoring the election in the likely absence of
outside observers, a top Canadian official said.

In order to protect the vote, Bush is increasing U.S. troop numbers
by about 10 percent to 150,000.

Bush sought to boost U.S. troop morale by promising to train Iraqi
forces to replace them, though he acknowledged mixed results so far.

“Some Iraqi units have performed better than others,” he told thousands
of camouflage-clad Marines at Camp Pendleton, California. “Some Iraqis
have been intimidated enough by the insurgents to leave the service
to their country.”

But he said “a great many are standing firm.”

(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy in Baghdad)

12/07/04 19:27 ET