Thursday 26 December 2013

CHRISTIANS TARGETED BY JIHADISTS: Christmas bombings kill 34 in Iraq

BAGHDAD — At least 34 people were killed in three bombings in Christian areas of Baghdad yesterday (Dec 25), including a car bomb that exploded as worshippers were leaving a Christmas service, Iraqi police and medics said.

Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 10 people were killed in three attacks that targeted police and Shia pilgrims, police said.

Iraq is enduring its deadliest violence in years, reviving memories of the sectarian bloodshed between Sunni and Shia Muslims that killed tens of thousands in 2006 to 2007.

The day’s deadliest incident occurred in the Doura district of southern Baghdad when the car bomb went off as Christians were emerging from a Christmas mass, killing at least 24 people.

Two bombs in a crowded market in a separate, mostly Christian area of Doura killed another 10 people.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks in Baghdad, which also wounded 52 people.

Iraq’s fast-dwindling Christian minority has been a target of Al Qaeda Sunni militants in the past, including a 2010 attack on a church that killed dozens of people.

The United States embassy in Baghdad condemned the bombings, saying in a statement that Christians in Iraq had suffered “deliberate and senseless targeting by terrorists for many years, as have many other innocent Iraqis”.

Al Qaeda-linked militants have stepped up attacks on Iraq Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki’s Shia-led government and anyone seen as supporting it in recent months. More than 8,000 people have been killed this year, according to the United Nations.

Car bombs, shootings and suicide attacks killed scores of Shia pilgrims in the week before the Shia holy day of Arbain, which coincided with Christmas Eve this year.

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