local Christians are persecuted by Islamic radicals who accuse them of collaborating with American occupiers.
It was not clear if Christians were among the roughly 70 people who died when a suicide car bomb exploded near a police station in the Iraqi town of Baquba, where Iraqis stood in line to apply for jobs in the security forces.
However the U.S. based Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) said "growing persecution" has many Iraqi Christians looking for a way to leave the country. Many Christians are known to have died in violence and specific attacks.
Wednesday’s suicide attack created a scene of devastation. Television footage showed dead bodies scattered across the ground and injured people dazed and confused. Rescue services were struggling to cope and outgunned police men watched in agony as people cried for attention between twisted metal and debris.
QUEING IRAQIS
Most of the dead and injured were Iraqis queuing for jobs and passengers of a nearby bus which accidentally passed the area when the bomb went off. The provincial police chief blamed the attack on Al-Qaeda-linked militants, the French News Agency (AFP) said.
Confirming that a suicide bomber triggered the massive explosion, General Walid Khaled Abdel Salam accused a group loyal to Jordanian born Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaeda’s suspected chief in Iraq, of masterminding the attack.
"After they found themselves cornered and hunted down by Iraqi police, they carried out this horrible act to scare off the new recruits," AFP quoted him as saying. In addition south of Baghdad, 35 insurgents and seven Iraqi troops were killed in a joint raid with multinational soldiers, the US military told reporters.
MORE KILLINGS
There were also killings elsewhere in Iraq, including a 13-year-old child, in a Baghdad mortar attack. Earlier late Tuesday, July 27, a US soldier was killed and three comrades wounded when their convoy was ambushed, news reports said.
The latest violence was expected to increase public pressure on governments in Eastern European countries such as Poland and Hungary to withdraw forces. However Hungary pledged Tuesday, July 27, not to withdraw its forces from Iraq, despite growing public pressure to do so after a Hungarian soldier was killed and other Eastern European coalition members were kidnapped and murdered in separate incidents, BosNewsLife learned.
HUNGARY PRAISED
Hungary earned praise for its decision from visiting Secretary of State Colin Powell, who came to increase support for the Iraq mission. Secretary Powell said Hungary follows Bulgaria’s example which rebuffed calls at home to pull out its 480 troops following the recent beheading by militants of two truck drivers.
“Foreign Minister (Solomon) Pasi said that while all Bulgarians and all civilized people were saddened by what happened, the people of Bulgaria will not let kidnappers hold hostage the freedom of eight million Bulgarians in addition to the two they murdered. It is that kind of courage that will be needed,” Powell added.
He also supported Hungarian Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs’s idea to create an institute promoting democracy in Budapest. Powell said the former Communist nation was well qualified as it was the first East Block country to rise up against the Soviet Union in a 1956-revolt, which was eventually crushed by Russian soldiers.
