triangle, shortly after the country’s Assyrian Christian community warned its churches will become the next target of a terrorism.
Reporters said the attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at the police station in a daring attack in the troubled town of Fallujah Saturday morning. "Scores of prisoners held at the police compound were reportedly released by the attackers." The Voice of America (VOA) said.
The latest violence, which followed two suicide blasts this week that killed over 100 people, underscored concern among especially minority Christians in the region about what they see as Muslim violence against them and those supporting the U.S.-led coalition. Several Assyrian Christian churches have already received threatening letters and leaflets, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported Friday, February 13.
"Our branch here in Baghdad received a report warning us, ‘You have to inform the chairman to take care. We have some information,’ added Willeam Warda, the head of the Culture and Information Department of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, grouping many of Iraq’s Assyrian communities.
THREATS TAKEN "SERIOUSLY"
"They didn’t declare what kind of information, but we depend on the report that we received and we take the subject seriously," he told RFE/RL.
Up to one million Assyrians are believed to be living in Iraq, the only group that still speaks Aramaic, an ancient Semitic language spoken by Jesus and his disciples. Most are in Baghdad and central Iraq, but large communities can also be found in the north and south of the country. Warda said many Christian churches are responding to the anonymous threats and violence by cutting back the number of services and working only during daylight hours.
"All the churches now are paying attention to these kinds of threats, and they are changing the time [of their services]. Even churches which used to hold meetings for youth and things like this are postponing them and neglecting some lectures for youth and for women," RFE/RL quoted him as saying…
MUSLIMS DENY INVOLVEMENT
But some Iraqi Muslim organizations denied threatening Christians. An official of Al-Hawza al-Ilmia, a powerful Shi’a movement, said his group condemns unconditionally the threats against the Christian churches, the network reported.
"We heard about the signs that [Christian churches] might be attacked, and we condemn such operations, because Islam respects all sacred places, like mosques, churches, et cetera," said Sheikh Abd al-Jabbar Menhal, a Baghdad representative of the group.
Christians told BosNewsLife that the United States has been slow to employ enough Iraqi policemen and soldiers to improve the security situation for them and other vulnerable groups in Iraq suffering under Muslim extremism.
IRAQI FORCES DESPERATE
Yet Saturday’s attack also showed that Iraqi security forces seem unable to deal with the increasingly sophisticated terrorist attacks. VOA quoted police and hospital officials in Fallujah as saying there may have been up to 50 attackers who took part in the assault. Most of the dead were said to be Iraqi policemen and several civilians caught in the crossfire.
The attack came two days after the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East was ambushed in Fallujah at the same compound. NBC Television showed a fierce gun battle between American forces and gunmen who attacked General John Abizaid’s convoy with rocket-propelled grenades from nearby rooftops Thursday, February 12.
No injuries were reported, but one soldier told NBC’s Nightly News it was difficult to establish whether some of the attackers had been killed or wounded. Analysts say the attacks have been carried out by groups with links to Al-Qaeda or remnants of the old regime, including radical Sunni groups frustrated by their community’s loss of prestige and power following the fall of Hussein.
Fallujah has been one of the most troublesome and violent towns in Iraq for U.S. soldiers, as it is an area where former President Hussein drew a lot of support, VOA reported.
