AFP, 31 Dec 2010
BAGHDAD: A wave of apparently coordinated bomb attacks in Iraq's capital has killed two Christians and wounded 16, further stoking fears in a community already terrified after a massacre at a church there two months ago.
Fourteen bombs were placed at different Christian homes late on Thursday, an interior ministry official said on Friday.
"Two Christians were killed and 16 wounded" by the 10 bombs that went off, while security forces carried out controlled detonations of the other four, the official said.
The only fatal attack was in the central district of Al-Ghadir, where a home-made bomb exploded at around 8:00 pm (1700 GMT), killing the two Christians and wounding three others.
Most of the bombs, which targeted Christian homes in seven different part of the city, were in the central district of Karrada, the official said.
Three devices wounded three Christians there, and all four of the controlled detonations were also in Karrada.
Another bomb targeted a house in Al-Ilam neighbourhood in southern Baghdad, wounding one person; two bombs wounded four people in Dora in the south of the city and one bomb in Saidiya, also in the south, wounded two people.
Another device targeted a Christian home in Yarmuk in western Baghdad, wounding one. A house in Khadra, also in the west of the city, was targeted by a bomb that wounded two people.
"It's a mess. It shows the incapability of the government to restore security," said Father Yousef Thomas Mirkis, the head of the Dominican order in Iraq.
"It is very difficult to understand why people attack the Christians, because we do not have any political power and we are not a threat," he said.
Father Saad Sirop Hanna, the head priest at a Chaldean Catholic church in central Baghdad, said "the purpose of these attacks is to threaten the Christians and force them to flee from Iraq."
The US embassy in Baghdad denounced the bombings.
"We condemn the attacks," said embassy spokesman David Ranz.
The bombings came almost two months to the day after an October 31 attack by militants on Our Lady of Salvation church in central Baghdad, which left the 44 worshippers, two priests and seven security forces members dead.
Al-Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack and made new threats against Christians.
It said the attack was to force the release of two women in Egypt who had allegedly converted to Islam and who they said were being held hostage by the Coptic Church there.
"All Christian centres, organisations and institutions, leaders and followers, are legitimate targets for the mujahedeen (holy warriors) wherever they can reach them," the group said.
"Let these idolaters, and at their forefront, the hallucinating tyrant of the Vatican, know that the killing sword will not be lifted from the necks of their followers until they declare their innocence from what the dog of the Egyptian Church is doing," the ISI said.
Ten days after the church massacre, a string of bomb and mortar attacks targeting the homes of Christians in Baghdad killed six people and wounded 33 others.
On December 21, Chaldean Catholic archbishop Monsignor Louis Sarko said in Kirkuk that he "and 10 other Christian personages received threats from the so-called Islamic State of Iraq."
On Christmas Day, both the speaker of parliament, Osama al-Nujaifi, and Prime Minister Nur al-Maliki urged Christians, hundreds of thousands of whom have fled abroad amid unrest since the 2003 US-led invasion, to stay in Iraq.
"Iraqis don't want the sound of the (church) bells to stop," Nujaifi said.
And Maliki said: "We strongly call on (Christians) to stay in their country, to commit to their country and participate in building and reconstructing it."
A preliminary report released on Thursday by Iraq Body Count, a Britain-based monitoring group, said the number of Iraqi civilians killed in violence in 2010 was set to be the lowest since the 2003 US-led invasion.
However, it also noted that attacks remain common across the country.
Maliki, who was approved by parliament for a second term in office along with a national unity cabinet on December 21, has cited security as one of his top three priorities.
But 10 ministries, including those responsible for security, which are controlled by Maliki in the interim, have only acting heads.
