From Monday evening through Tuesday, extremists launched several attacks on Iraqi Christians in the northern, mostly Sunni Arab city of Mosul (pop. 2 million), killing four.
On October 31, a major attack by extremists on Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad left over 50 dead. In the past two weeks, “al-Qaeda in Iraq” has announced that Christians are a legitimate target not only in iraq but throughout the Middle East. Attacks and bombings and especially threatening letters and posters have impelled a new exodus.
It is alarming that both Shiite and Sunni extremists have apparently taken up the call to force the Christians out. These techniques are exactly the ones that Shiite militants used to ethnically cleanse Baghdad of most of its Sunnis in 2006-2007. When I did interviewing with (mostly Sunni) Iraqi refugees in Jordan, they mentioned receiving letters threatening them with being killed if they did not leave their neighborhood. The threats were among the things keeping them from returning to Iraq. If such techniques could chase hundreds of thousands of Sunnis out of the capital, they hold the potential of forcing all Christians out of Iraq.
No comments:
Post a Comment