Guard recruits south of Baghdad on Monday, February 28, killing at least 106 and wounding 133, shattering hopes of minority Christians that life had improved, police said.
The powerful blast, which rocked a popular commercial district in the town of Hilla, 95 kilometers (about 60 miles) from Baghdad, was one of the deadliest insurgent attacks since President George W. Bush declared an end of major fighting in May 2003.
Dozens of bodies were seen near the site of the blast and Associated Press Television News APTN) footage showed large pools of blood outside the medical clinic, located on a dusty street in Hilla.
"GUEUING UP"
"People were queuing up to be checked medically in order to become policemen. A car came … and exploded, killing more than 50 people, more than what you expect," Ammar Mosa, a witness told APTN.
A second car bomb exploded Monday, February 28, at a police checkpoint in Musayyib, about 12 kilometers (20 miles) north of Hillah, killing at least one policeman and wounding the Associated Press (AP) quoted police as saying on condition of anonymity.
The twin blasts came as a setback for Iraq’s roughly 750,000 Christians, many of whom are known to have supported the US-coalition and are looking for jobs in re-emerging Iraqi security forces, BosNewsLife established.
EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE
"Unfortunately many Christians are in need of food as they have no job. Others have physical needs," explained Pastor Ghassan Thomas, of the Evangelical Alliance Church in Baghdad, in an earlier interview.
It was unclear how many Chrisians were among those killed in Monday’s blast, which came just days after a bishop in Kurdish controlled Northern Iraq, expressed some optimism about the prospect of peace.
"Police and the army now have the means they need to do their work," said Rabban Al-Qas, Bishop of Amadiyah in an interview with the Catholic website AsiaNews. "Every day we see 40-50 people arrested for terrorism or for collaborating with terrorists. [For instance,] a terrorist ringleader in Mosul was arrested along with other terrorists," he was quoted as saying.
CHRISTIAN REFUGEES
Yet Monday’s blast was expected to discourage tens of thousands of Iraqi Christian refugees to return from nearby Jordan and Syria.
"Since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, ChaldoAssyrian Christians in Iraq have been targeted for sharing the dominate religion of the Americans, Christianity," noted analyst Gordon Lake, of the ChristianIraq.com Internet website.
"They’ve suffered church bombings, kidnappings, beheadings, rapes, threats and other atrocities as members of a minority religion, forcing tens of thousands to flee Iraq for safer nations abroad," he added.
HALF BROTHER
The latest violence came shortly after Iraqi officials announced that Syria had captured and handed over Saddam Hussein’s half brother, a most-wanted leader who has been linked to the Sunni-based insurgency.
The arrest of Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, who shared a mother with Saddam Hussein, also ended months of Syrian denials that it was harboring fugitives from the ousted regime. Iraq authorities said Damascus acted in a gesture of goodwill.
He was reportedly nabbed along with 29 other fugitive members of the former Iraqi leader’s Baath Party in Hasakah in northeastern Syria, about 18 kilometers (30 miles) from the Iraqi border. Despite the violence pastor Thomas, married with two children, said he would not leave Iraq. "People need Jesus now, they are open for the Gospel."
(With: BosNewsLife News Center, reports from Iraq, BosNewsLife research)
