Posted on 10/16/2004 5:39:00 AM PDT by notkerry
Bombs exploded near five churches around Baghdad on Saturday morning followed by a mortar attack near a sixth church, causing damage but no casualties, officials said.
"There were five explosions caused by improvised bombs near to these churches," said Colonel Adnan Abdelrahman, an Iraqi interior ministry spokesman.
In an apparently coordinated strike against Iraq's tiny Christian community, the church of St Joseph in the west of the Iraqi capital was hit at about 4:00am (local time), the spokesman said.
Twenty minutes later, another blast ripped through the streets at another St Joseph church, in Dora, southern Baghdad.
After another 20 minutes, St Paul's church was struck in the same area.
At 4:50am, the Orthodox church in the central district of Karrada was rocked by a blast and a fifth occurred about an hour later at the St Thomas church in Mansour to the west.
"The buildings were damaged but no one was hurt," Col Abdelrahman said.
The violence resumed hours later when a mortar round was fired into a car park between a hotel and St George's Anglican church, witnesses said.
"There were no injuries," said Tassin Ali, a security guard who had been sitting at the front gate to the hotel.
The mortar round struck directly opposite the church but it was unclear whether it had been the target, an AFP reporter said.
About five cars were damaged in the blast.
Iraq's Christian community has been heavily targeted in the unrest that has swept Iraq following last year's US-led invasion.
At the start of August, four attacks against Christian targets in Baghdad and two others in Mosul left 10 people dead and 50 injured.
There are only about 700,000 Christians in Iraqi, or 3 per cent of the country's population of some 24 million people, which is majority Muslim.
One medic was killed and nine others wounded when a mortar round exploded outside a hospital in Baghdad, just after an artillery shell struck near a church down the road, officials said.
"The mortar landed in the garden of the hospital," said Hashim Mohammed, a security officer at the Ibn el-Bitar hospital.
The hospital deputy said one person was killed and nine wounded, all of them staff.
Meanwhile, a US soldier died of wounds sustained in a car bomb attack in Iraq's northern city of Mosul, according to the US military.
It said the military convoy was attacked in an eastern area of Mosul on Friday afternoon.
Happy Ramadan.
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
Orthodox bump!
coming to a city near you - after Nov 2 if sKerry is elected.
If a Christian church is bombed, does it make a sound?
I'm sure Cardinal Sodano is going to issue a statement condemning these attacks.
/sarcasm
"religion" of "peace" my foot! That's how I feel about islam.
I'm no Sodano fan. On Iraq:
"Is irritating a billion Muslims worth it? This is the question I put to some of my American friends: is it advisable? Won’t you have the hostility of that whole population for decades?”
"The child has been born, It may be illegitimate, but it's here, and it must be reared and educated."
He also criticizes Israel for their mistreatment of Arafat.
""religion" of "peace" my foot! That's how I feel about islam."
But isn't that what our much beloved Pres. Bush has called it? Why is the President so afraid to call a spade a spade and recognize that we are in a religious war? I'll vote for him, but I won't like it.
Don't care who coined the phrase "religion of peace". It is not! I'm voting for Bush because he is the best person to lead our country. Like that I'm voting for someone and against someone.
Orthodox and Catholic and Anglican and all Christians bump. The Muslims can'ttell the difference.
We are stuck with Bush - Kerry will restart the jihad in the Balkans.
"We are stuck with Bush - Kerry will restart the jihad in the Balkans."
I agree. With Holbrooke and Albright calling the shots, it will just go from bad to worse.
"Why is the President so afraid to call a spade a spade"
So what would you have him do? Start bad mouthing mohameddans while our brave men and women are in harm's way? The policies and actions initiated by this President go a long way in demonstrating where he stands: A Christian who reaches out to the humane instincts of islamics while holding the "big stick" in the other hand.
"So what would you have him do? Start bad mouthing mohameddans while our brave men and women are in harm's way? The policies and actions initiated by this President go a long way in demonstrating where he stands: A Christian who reaches out to the humane instincts of islamics while holding the "big stick" in the other hand."
No, I'd have him stop talking about a religion of peace. Its a lie and in my opinion, leads the American people to believe that, as Kerry would have, it just a few "nuisances" running around. And I would have had him or his people not make the hollow threats against Fallujah a few months back, start an assault, tell the Mohammadens that their time was up, have a few brave soldiers die or get horribly wounded and then pull back. You know, its no wonder so many of those devils don't take us at our word or believe that they can start and stop talks and our bombing simply by saying so. Look how that fat boy Sadr is still running loose and how many people died because we didn't simply take him and his band down in the first place. Its a grave responsibility to send young men and women off to die for our country. It is a sin to tell them to fight and die, but watch out you don't kill too many of the enemy or offend their dog vomit religious sensibilities.
My people lived under the thumb of those Mohammadens for four hundred years. We know all about those people. And as we showed in 1825, we know how to beat them. American "sensitivity", liberal or conservative, will only get young Americans killed.
Like I said, I'll vote for the President, I'd never vote for a brie nibbling, chablis swilling traitor like Kerry, but I won't like it.
Again, the President is a secular leader not a religious one. So he cannot call for a war against a so-called religion, even one as abhorrent as islam is.
Second, doing what you would have him do would result in pogroms - democide - against the few remaining thousands of Christians left across islamistan, who have been "living" with islam for far longer than 400 years. Not an option at this time.
The American people (at least the thinking Americans who are not brainwashed by PC) are well aware if what islam is...they do not need the President to spell it out for them.
As for the Sadr situation...you are right. NO American should be sacrificed in order to further some "sensitive" way out of the Shia mess. But I can't help but think how the situation would have developed had we gone in and sent them en masse to the houris.
The President's actions are showing forceful restraint: An approach that many would describe as a brilliantly successful way to defeat this enemy. If the time comes and Iraqis themselves fail to deal with these criminals, I would anticipate a change in policy.
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