Over 100 Killed in Iraq, as Christians Bury their Dead

several police stations in the northern city of Mosul Thursday,  June 24, just as Christians there prepared to burry two young Assyrian sisters who were shot and killed earlier in the week.

Thursday’s violence,  the most bloodiest in months, also spread to other area’s and rose the total death toll to over one hundred,  news reports and Iraqi officials claimed.  (Photo: Policeman walks between rubble after attack in Ramadi Source:  VOA/AP) 

American forces came under heavy attack in Baquba, where two United States servicemen were among more than a dozen people killed,  the Voice of America (VOA) reported. U.S. aircraft reportedly dropped three 225-kilogram bombs on insurgent strongholds around the municipality.

Iraqi officials also spoke of several dozen other deaths in clashes in Ramadi, Fallujah and on the outskirts of Baghdad. In Fallujah, the crew of a U.S. Marine helicopter escaped unharmed after making an emergency landing,  VOA said.  The latest violence, linked to Islamic extremists, also underscored fear among Iraq’s Christian minority,  less than a week before the American-led coalition officially ends its "occupation" and hands over power to the transitional government.

The violence in Mosul, known in the Bible as Nineveh where prophet Jonah brought the message of repentance, overshadowed plans to burry two Iraqi sisters who worked for a big American firm before they were killed in a drive-by shooting this week near their home in the southern city of Basra, relatives told the Reuters news service.

Janet and Shatha, aged 38 and 25, worked for the U.S. company Bechtel, which has been awarded major infrastructure reconstruction contracts in Iraq,  their father, Sadah Audishowr was quoted as saying.

WAITING ON CHILDREN

Audishow, said he had been waiting at the window for his girls to return from work when he heard gunshots and saw a white pick-up truck speeding past. “I had been waiting for my daughters to come home at five o’clock," said Audishow, an Assyrian Christian who works and lives in the church with his family.

"I picked one of them up and she was dead. I went to pick up the other but found her dead too," he told Reuters, while his shirt still stained with blood from the night before. Neighbors said men in the truck had opened fire on the girls’ car, Reuters reported.

The family was taking the bodies of the girls to Mosul for burial, the father said. "We had received no threats," he said. "We are peaceful people, just making a living." There have been several killings of Christians that involved both shootings and cutting of throats in recent weeks and months,  human rights watchdogs and church sources say.

ISLAMIC MILITANTS

Christians are seen by Islamic militants as supporting America’s policy and the Western culture they despise. While attacks on Iraqi translators and others working with American companies in Iraq are common, Iraqi Christians have told BosNewsLife there have been many attacks on Christians,  especially and shopkeepers selling alcohol. 

In addition Christian women have been attacked in city’s such as Shia controlled Basra,  as they did were not dressed according to the strict Islamic dress code,  human rights workers say. Insurgents have also intensified a campaign of assassinations, bombings and attacks on oil infrastructure ahead of the transition from U.S.-led occupation to Iraqi rule on June 30. Most of the victims have been ordinary Iraqis.

Coalition officials warned the offensive could augur escalated attacks in Baghdad in coming days. "We underestimated the nature of the insurgency that we might face during this period, and so the insurgency that we are looking at now … has become a serious problem for us," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).