Churches in Iraq Subjected to Synchronized Terrorism
MEMRI is a new source to me. The acronym stands for the Middle East Media Research Institute. Highlights from this article include some comments on the cartoon debacle.
"The bombing of seven churches in seven quarters of two large cities - Baghdad and Kirkuk - simultaneously is a well-planned and well-executed terrorist act...Christian spokesmen maintain that the motive behind the bombings is to spread sedition (fitna) in the country, which could lead to a civil war, one of al-Zarqawi's stated goals. They accuse "Arab fanatics" whose bombing and whose "daily threats, kidnappings [and] discrimination" aim to "drive the Christian community out of Iraq."
There are also Christian spokesmen who suggest that there might be some linkage between the bombings of the churches and the publication in Denmark and, subsequently in Norway and other European countries, of the offensive caricatures of Prophet Mohammad. However, Msgr. Rabban al Qas , the Chaldean Bishop of Amadiyah and Erbil (Kurdistan), discounts the linkage because, according to him, it takes weeks to plan such a synchronized attack and to prepare the car bombs...Writing about the "Shameful Aggression against the Iraqi Christians" in the independent electronic daily Sot al-Iraq, Aziz al-Haj, a former leader of the Iraqi Communist Party, blamed the Islamists for spreading a religious culture that permits the killing of what they refer to as the apostates. "The pursuing of the Christians since the fall of Saddam and the chain of attacks against the churches," wrote al-Haj, has been done because of religious hatred to all other religions. Al-Haj finds similar roots of hatred in "the besieging of Christians, and Christian women in particular" by the supporters of the young extremist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, first in al-Sadr City and later in the city of Basra, which caused hundreds of Christians to leave.
After highlighting Christian contributions throughout the history of Iraq, al-Haj finds a similar pattern in what is happening in Iraq and in what is happening in other Arab countries in terms of restrictions and discriminations against other religions. He gives the examples of the Copts in Egypt, the Southerners in Sudan, including the raping of their women, and finally the criminal role of the Zarqawis who blow up mosques as well as churches. In a subsequent article, Aziz al-Haj laments the attempts by Islamists to turn the issue of the caricatures of Prophet Mohammad into a struggle with Christianity and Christians, implicitly encouraged by governments which seek to divert attention from internal disasters. Al-Haj suspects that the participation of Muslim clerics and intellectuals as well as a number of major Islamic organizations in conferences about "the dialogue of civilizations" is nothing more than "devious methods to conceal the Islamic rancor toward Christianity and Judaism and toward the Western civilization which is centered in the countries of the west."
"The bombing of seven churches in seven quarters of two large cities - Baghdad and Kirkuk - simultaneously is a well-planned and well-executed terrorist act...Christian spokesmen maintain that the motive behind the bombings is to spread sedition (fitna) in the country, which could lead to a civil war, one of al-Zarqawi's stated goals. They accuse "Arab fanatics" whose bombing and whose "daily threats, kidnappings [and] discrimination" aim to "drive the Christian community out of Iraq."
There are also Christian spokesmen who suggest that there might be some linkage between the bombings of the churches and the publication in Denmark and, subsequently in Norway and other European countries, of the offensive caricatures of Prophet Mohammad. However, Msgr. Rabban al Qas , the Chaldean Bishop of Amadiyah and Erbil (Kurdistan), discounts the linkage because, according to him, it takes weeks to plan such a synchronized attack and to prepare the car bombs...Writing about the "Shameful Aggression against the Iraqi Christians" in the independent electronic daily Sot al-Iraq, Aziz al-Haj, a former leader of the Iraqi Communist Party, blamed the Islamists for spreading a religious culture that permits the killing of what they refer to as the apostates. "The pursuing of the Christians since the fall of Saddam and the chain of attacks against the churches," wrote al-Haj, has been done because of religious hatred to all other religions. Al-Haj finds similar roots of hatred in "the besieging of Christians, and Christian women in particular" by the supporters of the young extremist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, first in al-Sadr City and later in the city of Basra, which caused hundreds of Christians to leave.
After highlighting Christian contributions throughout the history of Iraq, al-Haj finds a similar pattern in what is happening in Iraq and in what is happening in other Arab countries in terms of restrictions and discriminations against other religions. He gives the examples of the Copts in Egypt, the Southerners in Sudan, including the raping of their women, and finally the criminal role of the Zarqawis who blow up mosques as well as churches. In a subsequent article, Aziz al-Haj laments the attempts by Islamists to turn the issue of the caricatures of Prophet Mohammad into a struggle with Christianity and Christians, implicitly encouraged by governments which seek to divert attention from internal disasters. Al-Haj suspects that the participation of Muslim clerics and intellectuals as well as a number of major Islamic organizations in conferences about "the dialogue of civilizations" is nothing more than "devious methods to conceal the Islamic rancor toward Christianity and Judaism and toward the Western civilization which is centered in the countries of the west."
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