SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq, Aug 2, (Agencies): A car bomb outside a Christian church wounded 23 people on Tuesday morning, police said, as security forces found and disabled vehicles packed with explosives outside two other parishes in northern Iraq. The bombing and the two averted attacks in the northern city of Kirkuk signal continued violence against Iraqi Christians, nearly 1 million of whom have fled since the war began in 2003. “The terrorists want to make us flee Iraq, but they will fail,” said the Rev Haithem Akram, the priest of one of the churches that was targeted. “We are staying in our country. The Iraqi Christians are easy targets because they do not have militias to protect them. The terrorists want to terrorize us, but they will fail.”

The assault began at 6 am, when the car blew up outside the Syrian Catholic church, severely damaging the church and nearby houses, said police Col Taha Salaheddin. The parish’s leader, the Rev Imad Yalda, was the only person inside at the time of the blast and was wounded. The 22 other wounded were people whose nearby homes were hit by the blast, said Kirkuk police chief Maj Gen Jamal Tahir.

Following the blast at the Syrian Catholic church, police discovered two more car bombs parked outside the Christian Anglican church and the Mar Gourgis church, both in downtown Kirkuk. The ethnically and religiously mixed city of Kirkuk is located 180 miles (290 kms) north of Baghdad. Sunni extremists often target Christians who are seen as unbelievers. Violence against Christians stepped up late last year, climaxing in the Oct 31 siege of a Catholic cathedral in downtown Baghdad that left 68 dead and scored wounded when al-Qaeda suicide bombers held worshippers hostage for hours before detonating their explosives belts. Since then, the Vatican and the US Congress have pleaded for Iraq’s government to do more to protect Christians in Iraq.

A State Department report says Christian leaders estimate that 400,000 to 600,000 Christians remain in Iraq, down from a prewar level of as high as 1.4 million by some estimates.
An AFP correspondent said the doors, windows and generators at the church were destroyed, as well as pews inside. Some cars in the area were also destroyed. Several old women gathered to pray inside the church after the blast, while other people gathered outside. Some residents searched for belongings among the rubble of houses.
Ethnically divided Kirkuk lies at the centre of a tract of territory which Kurdish leaders want to incorporate in their autonomous region in the north over the opposition of many of the province’s Arab and Turkmen residents and of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Most of them live in Baghdad, Kirkuk, the area surrounding the northern city of Mosul and parts of the autonomous Kurdish region.

Last Oct 31, militants stormed Our Lady of Salvation church in central Baghdad, killing 44 worshippers, two priests and seven security force personnel in an attack claimed by al-Qaeda’s local affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq. Violence in Iraq has fallen sharply since the height of the 2006-2007 fighting between majority Shiites and once dominant Sunni Arabs, but bombings and shootings by insurgents and militias remain a daily occurrence. Sectarian tensions continue to fester more than eight years after the US invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. Iraq’s Christian minority, mainly living in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Nineveh province, have been targeted in the past. Kirkuk, 250 kms (155 miles) north of Baghdad, is also riven by political tensions — Kurds say the city is part of their semi-autonomous region, a claim disputed by the federal government.

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BAGHDAD: A Baghdad court has convicted three Iraqis and sentenced them to death for their role in a church siege last year that killed 68 people. Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar, spokesman for the Supreme Judicial Council, says a fourth man was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The men were convicted Tuesday on charges of masterminding and preparing the attack. Bayrkdar says they have a month to appeal. The raid last October on Our Lady of Salvation in downtown Baghdad was the most deadly single attack against Iraqi Christian since the 2003 US-led invasion. Militants burst into the church during Mass, gunning down priests and worshippers before detonating their explosives-packed vests. Since 2003, nearly 1 million Christians have been driven out of Iraq.