General Sir Richard Dannatt said the prince had taken the decision "personally," despite threats by Shia officials he would be attacked. Concerns for his safety, and that of his soldiers, have grown however after 11 UK troops were killed this month, one of the bloodiest
since the conflict began over four years ago.
His arrival comes amid growing concern about sectarian violence and attacks against Christians, BosNewsLife monitored. In published remarks, a Christian parliamentarian in Iraq’s Kurdistan region said Christians are facing "a mounting number of threats"
forcing them into exile.
"Thousands of Christian families are being told to leave the country or convert to Islam or pay the jizyah (a tax traditionally imposed on non-Muslim men in Islamic states)," the parliamentarian, Romeo Hakkari, told Adnkronos International (AKI) news service.
An ethnic Assyrian of the Chaldean Church – a Roman Catholic oriental rite denomination – Hakkari heads the House of the Two Rivers Democratic Party, which promotes the rights of Assyrian-Chaldeans.
GUNMEN THREATS
Another Christian member of parliament, Efraim Abdul Ahad of the Kurdish Alliance, confirmed
the findings and urged the government to counter threats against Christians, including in southern Baghdad’s predominantly Sunni Muslim neighborhood of al-Dura, news reports said. Abdul Ahad said the al-Dura Christians had been told by gunmen to leave their homes, pay 250,000 dinars (around $205 dollars) or convert to Islam.
In addition, Christian churches in Iraq have reportedly also received messages saying "Get rid
of the cross or we will burn your Churches," BosNewsLife monitored. Church leaders in Iraq said in published comments that the Chaldean Church of ‘St. Peter and Paul’ in the ancient Christian quarter of Baghdad, Dora, was among those targeted by apparent Islamic militants.
Baghdad’s Chaldean Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni told the AsiaNews service that "in the last two months many [more] Churches have been forced to remove their crosses from their domes".
Politicians such as Hakkari seemed surprised about these developments. "Since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime Christians in Iraq, and in particular Baghdad have faced persecution for the first time in the history of this country," Hakkari explained. "Hundreds of Christians have been abducted and murdered and their churches have been destroyed as part of a detailed plan implemented by Muslim extremists," he told AKI.
EVANGELICALS CONCERNED
Evangelicals have told BosNewsLife earlier however they also faced persecution under Saddam Hussein, although they seemed to suggest that the current attacks and threats are on a larger scale. Hakkari said he has appealed to all moderate political groups in Iraq to "work together to defeat the terrorists and ensure that all Iraqis live in harmony as they have done for centuries." Iraq’s Christian community has dropped from an estimated 750,000 to perhaps half that number, because of ongoing violence, experts say.
In one of the latest attacks, Iraqi officials said a suicide bomber killed at least 20 people attending a funeral Monday, April 30, while injuring 25 others inside a tent where mourners had gathered in Khalis, a Shi’ite enclave north of Baghdad.
It was the latest in a series of attacks across Iraq, Monday, April 30, and ended a month that besides British troops also saw more than 100 US servicemen killed, making it one of the deadliest months for America since the 2003 invasion.
As the attacks continued, representatives of Baghdad’s Christian community said they were concerned about the US military’s decision to allegedly occupy the empty Babel College, property of the Chaldean Church. The Babel, the only faculty of theology in the country, houses one of the most ancient religious libraries in the region, full of priceless manuscripts, local Christians reportedly said.
OBSERVATION POST
The US military is using it as an observation outpost as the building is located at a strategic crossroads within a Sunni enclave, in front of a Shiite district. However military representatives have promised to abandon the structure in the coming weeks, the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) reported.
Yet bringing stability in the country and ending sectarian violence and attacks by insurgents has been complicated by sharp divisions within the government along ethnic and religious lines.
On Monday, April 30, news emerged that US President George W Bush talked with Iraqi Vice President Tarek al-Hashimi on the latter’s possible move to bring his party out of the Iraqi government.
Al-Hashimi’s office said in a statement that Bush took the vice-president’s concerns seriously and invited him to Washington for further talks. The Iraqi Islamic Party has 44 of the 275 seats in parliament and is seen as the most important Sunni faction in the Shiite- and Kurd-dominated parliament. (With BosNewsLife Monitoring, BosNewsLife Research and BosNewsLife News Center).
