Christians in Iraq are shaken by bombings

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Wissam Sagman was thinking of emigrating recently, fearing his Christian family would not be safe in the new, chaotic Iraq. But he decided to stay.

Now, after a series of coordinated bombings at churches in Baghdad and Mosul that killed at least seven people, his fears have grown and he plans to redouble his efforts to get out.

Although Iraq's political and religious leaders have united to condemn Sunday's bombings, and Sagman's Muslim neighbors and colleagues have been dropping by to extend condolences, the Baghdad dentist feels the bombers simply want to drive out Iraq's 750,000 Christians.

"These people, they love blood. They hate humanity. They hate us," Sagman said, looking around his living room, wrecked by a car bomb attack on an Armenian church across the street. "They want all the Christians to leave."

The bombings were the first significant strike on Iraq's Christians since the ouster of Saddam Hussein last year. But even beforehand, Christians were feeling Islamic fundamentalism closing in, and hundreds had fled to neighboring Jordan and Syria.

Others are waiting to join them. Sagman said he had a permit to go to Syria but turned down the opportunity, hoping to move elsewhere. Now he says he'll try again.

"This is my church! My church!" Thomas George, 73, cried, shaking his walking stick outside a Syrian Catholic church in Baghdad that was targeted.

Muslim neighbors tried to console him.

One, Sadek Rabi, recalled attacks on Muslim places of worship that have killed hundreds.

"A Muslim can't go to a mosque and a Christian can't go to church now," said the 32-year-old Rabi.

Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh said authorities would "use all available force, both Iraqi and those of multinational forces in Iraq, to pursue and destroy the people who plan and carry out such atrocities."

Iraq's religious leaders unanimously denounced the bombings.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shiite Muslim cleric, called the bombings "hideous crimes" that "targeted Iraq's unity, stability and independence."

The Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential Sunni Muslim group believed to have links to insurgents, offered condolences and blamed the attacks on foreign fighters seeking to divide the nation. "Such acts cannot be done by Iraqis," it said.