BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government on Sunday ordered security forces to increase protection of Christians in northern Iraq, where hundreds have fled their homes in recent days after a wave of killings and threats.
At least a dozen Christians have been slain in the past few weeks in the city of Mosul, which has remained violent even as attacks have dropped in other parts of the country. Fighters from al-Qaida in Iraq, a mostly homegrown extremist group, have resisted efforts by U.S. troops to oust them from the area.
“These attacks have never been seen in Mosul city. Centuries and centuries we were living together,” a parliamentary deputy, Yonadam Kanna, said before he and other Christian politicians met Sunday with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Maliki’s office said in a statement that he was ordering the Iraqi army and police in the Mosul area “to provide protection for members of this (Christian) community” and added that the security forces would “target the terrorist groups” behind the attacks.
Christians make up about 3 percent of Iraq’s 27 million people, down from roughly twice that percentage before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to church leaders and human-rights organizations.
Many Christians have left the country after being kidnapped or harassed by Islamic extremists and criminals, church leaders say.
In recent years, some Christians had moved to northern Iraq, which appeared safer. But in February, the archbishop of Mosul’s Chaldean Christian community, Paulos Faraj Rahho, was kidnapped. His body turned up weeks later.
A new wave of panic spread through the Christian community in Mosul in recent weeks as several of its members appeared to be targeted for their faith. Those killed included a 15-year-old boy and a man in a wheelchair, Kanna said.
Then, on Saturday night, armed men blew up three empty homes belonging to Christians in the Mosul neighborhood of al-Sukar, Kanna said. That fed an exodus that has swelled to about 800 families, he said.
It was unclear who was behind the attacks, he said.
Latest Iraqi violence
n Suicide car bombers struck twice Sunday in the northern city of Mosul, killing at least six people and wounding dozens of others, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
n A car bomb killed seven other people Sunday in Baghdad.
n Two Iraqi soldiers were killed by snipers in separate attacks Sunday in the capital’s Yarmouk district, police said.
Associated Press
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