cities Tuesday, June 8, adding to anxiety among the country’s minority Christians, many of whom are reportly fleeing the troubled nation.
One of the car bombs blew up as a convoy of provincial council members passed by in the northern city of Mosul, news reports said. The council members escaped injury but at least nine people died and about 25 were injured, including the Mosul deputy police chief. In another attack, a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb during rush hour outside the American forward operating base War Horse in Baqouba, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of Baghdad.
Elsewhere, six coalition soldiers — two Poles, three Slovaks and a Latvian — were killed in an explosion while defusing mines in Suwayrah, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Baghdad, authorities said. In a more positive development American special forces freed three Italian and a Polish hostages Tuesday, June 8 south of Baghdad, in the first successful commando raid to rescue foreigners caught up in Iraq, military officials said.
But that news was immediately overshadowed by reports that another group of militants revealed that they had captured seven Turkish citizens, who the gunmen said "worked for Iraq’s U.S. occupiers," The Associated Press news agency reported.
WORRIED CHURCH LEADERS
The apperant lack of security came as church officials claimed that Iraqi Christians "are voting with their feet" by leaving, amid fears that the country will become an undemocratic Islamic state under a new government. (pictured: Rev. Ken Joseph Jr. with Assyrian flag).
Reverend Ken Joseph Jr, who is an Assyrian and directs internet website http://www.assyrianchristians.com, said the June 30th deadline for transfer of power will be accompanied by a Temporary Constitution that reads in Article 7 , "Islam is the Official Religion of the State".
He also cited "the most recent humiliation for the community – the failure to receive even one position on the Executive Council and only one Ministry Post – the Ministry of Emigration" in the 36-member cabinet as reasons why Christians are leaving Iraq. The new president, Ghazi Al-Yawer is a Muslim, as is prime minister Iyad Allawi.
MUSLIM IMAM
In addition Christians object that a Muslim imam preached a sermon and said a prayer at the ceremony while leaders from Iraq’s centuries-old Christian community were not even invited, Christian World News television reported.
It was not clear how many Christian refugees there are, but in some areas "400 families" are immigrating, Assyrianchristians.com reported. "On a recent night the Church had to spend more time on filling out the Baptismal forms needed for leaving the country than they did on the service" said Amir, a deacon at a local Church who did not want his name published, the website reported, apparently because of fear of Islamic extremism.
Most Christians in the country are Assyrians, the original people of Iraq. The Assyrians were the people of Nineveh, present day Mosul, where the Bible claims Prophet Jonah preached the message of repentance. "As the original people of Iraq and due to the fact that they are not Arabs (but) Christians in a sea of Moslems…
(they are) always seen as allies of the West (and) have been subject to long persecution," said Joseph Jr.
OLDEST CHURCH
The Assyrian Church – known officially as the Assyrian Church of the East, is believed to be the oldest continually existing Church in the world, and its people are the only in the world who still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Its internet website quoted Assyrian Christians as complaining that the United States funded television station in Iraq, Al Iraqia, broadcasts Moslem programs four times a day and for two hours each Friday but nothing for the other religions.
"The recent inauguration of the new government was opened by a Moslem Mullah giving a long message from the Koran and prayer, but none of our Priests were invited at all," 31 year old Robert reportedly said. "Why do they do this? Why do the Americans promote Moslems? They need to promote equality and democracy and freedom, not Moslem dictatorship."
Joseph Jr. said that the previous regime claimed there were 2.5 million Assyrian Christians in the country with an estimated 3.5 million living outside, for a worldwide total of as many as 6 million. Other estimates speak of up to one million Christians in Iraq. He said many are afraid to return, partly because of a blood stained history. "During the Assyrian Genocide, early in the 20th Century it is estimated that nearly 2/3 of the Assyrian people were slaughtered in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire," he explained.
Assyrian Christians have been asking support for their efforts to pressure law makers to amend an appropriations bill allocating U.S. financial aid to Iraq, which is currently under debate in Congress. They say the legislation "should demand that the new Iraqi government protect Christians in all of Iraq," Christian World News said.
