Region | Iraq
Iraq government blames Zarqawi for church bombings
Iraq's government today blamed Al Qaida ally Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi for a series of church bombings that killed at least 11 people, saying the aim was to spark religious strife and drive Christians out of the country.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:00 August 2, 2004
Iraq's government today blamed al Qaeda ally Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi for a series of church bombings that killed at least 11 people, saying the aim was to spark religious strife and drive Christians out of the country.
Muslim leaders condemned the car bombings that were timed for Sunday evening services in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul. The attacks were the first on churches of the minority Christian community since the start of a 15-month insurgency.
"There is no shadow of a doubt that this bears the blueprint of Zarqawi," said national security adviser Mowaffaq Al Rubaie.
"Zarqawi and his extremists are basically trying to drive a wedge between Muslims and Christians in Iraq. It's clear they want to drive Christians out of the country," he told Reuters.
The Jordanian-born militant has claimed responsibility for many major car bombings in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was ousted last year and also the killing of several foreign hostages among dozens seized in recent months.
An Islamist website showed photographs on Monday of what it said was the killing of a Turkish hostage by a group linked to Zarqawi. But a Somali held by militants also linked to Zarqawi is to be freed after his Kuwaiti employer agreed to halt operations in the country, Al Jazeera television said.
Rubaie said Iraq's national security council would hold an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the blasts that hit at least five churches in the country, including four in Baghdad.
Iraqi police defused two more bombs outside other churches, one in Baghdad and the other in Mosul.
The car bomb attacks near the Baghdad churches killed 10 people and wounded more than 40, the U.S. military said, adding the blasts occurred within a 30 minute period. At least one person was killed and 15 wounded by a bomb at a church in Mosul.
Christians make up three percent of the Iraqi population and have generally had good ties with the Muslim community, although several recent attacks have targeted alcohol sellers throughout Iraq, most of whom are Christians.
There are 800,000 Christians in Iraq, mostly in Baghdad.
Insurgents have mainly tried to provoke conflict between Sunni Muslims and members of the Shi'ite Muslim majority, who were oppressed by Saddam.
Adnan al-Asadi, a senior member of the Shi'ite Dawa Islamic party, said Muslims shared the pain of the Christian community.
"We reject these criminal acts which want to create religious and sectarian strife in Iraq," he said.
The U.S. military says a computer disk captured earlier this year contained a letter from Zarqawi calling for attacks on Iraqi Shi'ites to try to spark sectarian conflict in Iraq.
In March, coordinated suicide bombings during a Shi'ite religious ceremony killed more than 170 in Baghdad and Kerbala.
Washington has put a $25 million price on Zarqawi's head.
Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin said the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was trying its best to combat the insurgents and uproot their networks.
"This shows there are no borders to the barbarity of the crimes of these terrorists," he said in response to the attacks.
The Vatican has condemned the church blasts. Parish priest Bashar Muntihorda, speaking outside a Chaldean church in Baghdad that was hit, said Christians were devastated.
"The damage that was done is so high to the courage of the people, to their feelings, to their hopes that a bright future is coming," Muntihorda said, as volunteers swept up debris, including a broken stained glass window of Jesus.
Adding to Iraq's burden was the wave of hostage taking.
It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the images showing the apparent execution of the Turkish hostage or to identify the captive.
In a separate hostage stand-off, an aide to a tribal sheikh trying to secure the release of seven foreign truck drivers said negotiations had not resumed with their Kuwaiti employer.
He said the kidnappers had accused the Kuwaiti firm of not responding positively enough to their demands. The aide added that Sheikh Hisham Al Dulaymi would still mediate the talks to save the three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian, even though the kidnappers had asked him to withdraw.
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