Attack on church seen as setback for Iraqi Christians (News Feature)

By Kadhim al-Attabi Nov 1, 2010, 14:28 GMT

Baghdad - A weekend attack on a church in central Baghdad has reopened the wounds of Iraq's Christian communities, after a relatively quiet year in the country had allowed an arduous healing process to take hold.

Dozens of people were killed after Iraqi forces stormed the Assyrian Catholic church, where at least eight militants were holding some 100 worshippers hostage after Sunday services.

Among the dead were two priests and numerous congregants. Specific details of the incident are still emerging.

'We have lived through hours of anxiety and sadness as we followed the news,' said Victoria Khoshaba, a 48-year-old civil servant and a member of the country's Christian minority.

Although Iraq's security situation has improved, Khoshaba said, she worries that Christians will still face threats from powerful militants who can carry out audacious attacks in the heart of the Iraqi capital.

Improvements in Iraq are measured against a yardstick different from that in most other places. A month when only a few hundred people die in violent attacks is considered a massive improvement over the worst of times - such as 2006, when thousands were killed each month in shootings and bomb blasts.

Success in the country is also weighed by a different measure. Despite a death toll that likely surpassed 50, including many civilians, police forces considered the ending to the church drama a positive one.

'The operation was successful, all militants were killed and we detained some suspects,' said Iraqi Defence Minister Abdul-Qadir Mohammed Al-Obeidi, adding that 'a limited number of victims fell.'

The church tragedy, though, has rattled a community and thrown into question the viability of long-term security in Baghdad.

Pretending to be civilians, militants stormed the building just as services were ending at around 5 pm (1500 GMT) at Our Lady of Salvation, an important church in the al-Karrada neighbourhood, a mixed Shiite-Christian area of the capital.

A car outside exploded shortly after the militants, claiming to be part of al-Qaeda, took over the church. Numerous other gunshots and explosions were heard by residents over the following hours, as the incident unfolded.

On Monday morning, as the smoke cleared, burned-out cars littered the street outside the place of worship, which itself was damaged along with nearby homes.

A woman who was inside the church said a priest was shot at point- blank range in front of her, long before Iraqi police surrounded the building, eventually barging in to oust the attackers.

Many Shiite Muslims in the area appeared as shocked as their Christian neighbours by the incident, outraged by the violence that took over their part of Baghdad.

'We have received calls from Muslim friends who wanted to check on us,' said Khoshaba, the civil servant.

One Shiite woman said she spent hours frantically trying to locate an elderly relative of a Christian friend, who later turned up in hospital, suffering from minor injuries sustained during the attack.

The incident came a day after a suicide bomber blew up a crowded coffee shop in the northern Diyala province, killing 30 people and injuring 70 more.

The attacker, who wore an explosives belt, targeted Kurdish Shiites, another minority group in a country featuring a variety of ethnic and religious identities.

The two blasts brought to an end several weeks of relative peace in Iraq, which has failed to form a government since the March elections.

Iraq's Christians have fled the country in droves over the last decades - especially since the United States-led invasion in 2003, following which sectarian violence was unleashed with vigor.

Observers say Sunday's incident was the most significant for Christian sects since 2008, when persecution reached a peak in Mosul, an ancient city in northern Iraq.

It is estimated that about half of the Christians in the city, which has some of the religion's oldest sects in the world, fled during that wave of violence.

'It seems that the Christians will remain easy prey for insurgents, which is a serious indicator,' said Samer Edward, a shopkeeper in Baghdad. 'There should be more security measures to protect them.'

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