More Sad News From Mosul

IRAQ: Christians had started returning to Iraq’s third largest city, but a militant attack on Thursday may continue to keep them away | Mindy Belz


(WORLD Magazine) Armed militants killed Iraqi Christians Lamiaa Sabih Saloha and her sister Walaa Thursday morning in Mosul. The shootings took place just as many believed that violence directed at Christians in Iraq’s third largest city was subsiding and up to 200 Christian families who fled in October had started to return.

According to an Italian press report, the armed men shot and killed one of the women while she waited to catch the bus to go to work in the northern Mosul neighborhood of al-Qahira. The attackers then stormed her house and opened fire on the family, killing her sister and injuring their mother. Assyrian sources in Mosul told WORLD the mother is seriously injured after the attackers stabbed her. They then set explosives near the house, which went off just as police arrived, injuring three policemen and destroying the family’s home.

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At least 14 Christians have been killed in Mosul since September, and many believe this latest attack will deter Christians who left the city in recent weeks from returning to their homes. Since the beginning of the war, kidnappings and murders have hit especially hard the church community in Mosul, the second-largest community of Christians in Iraq after Baghdad and located 250 miles north of the capital. The city under Saddam was dominated by Sunni Arabs and with Tikrit formed the heartland for the Baath Party. But Sunnis boycotted 2005 elections and Kurds now dominate both the governing council and the police force. That may change when provincial elections are held in January, but already many blame Sunni militants for trying to undermine security and Kurdish gains with the recent violence.


Source: WORLD Magazine
Published November 12, 2008