By Edmund Blair
Baghdad - Car bombs exploded outside at least six Christian churches in Iraq on Sunday, killing at least three people and wounding many more in an apparently coordinated attack timed to coincide with evening prayers.
"We are expecting a huge number of casualties," an Interior Ministry source said. He said there had been four blasts at churches in Baghdad and two in Mosul. At least two of the Baghdad blasts were suicide car bomb attacks, he said.
The attacks were the first to target Christian churches during the 15-month insurgency.
'We are expecting a huge number of casualties' Iraqis said the blasts, which scattered chunks of hot metal and shattered stained glass windows, said they feared the attacks were designed to stir tensions among Iraq's diverse religious communities.
Continues Below ↓
"These operations are aimed at creating strife between Christians, Shi'as, Sunnis and others, nothing more, nothing less," said Omar Hussein, 25, a metalworker near the scene of a blast at the Armenian church in central Baghdad.
Another blast happened about 15 minutes later outside an Assyrian church in the same area, mangling cars and sending a loud boom reverberating across the neighbourhood. Medics dragged a wounded man from a car, his arm almost torn off by the blast.
An ambulance driver told Reuters that two people were killed in the explosion at the Assyrian church and several wounded.
Police said at least one person was killed in one of the Mosul blasts.
There are about 800,000 Christians in Iraq, most of them in Baghdad. There have been a string of attacks in recent weeks on alcohol sellers throughout Iraq, the majority of whom are Christians of either the Assyrian, Chaldean or Armenian denominations.
Earlier on Sunday, a suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle outside a police station in Mosul, killing at least five people and wounding 53.
Continues...
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
