By Jeff Gardner

As U.S. troops withdraw, Iraqi Catholics targeted

Analysts say Islamic militants are trying to drive out last of nation's Christian minority

That Sunday morning was hot at St. Mary church in eastern Baghdad, Iraq. Bishop Shlemon Warduni, an auxiliary of the Chaldean Church, celebrated Mass and then led his parishioners in prayers for peace and security. After seeing some of the families off, he returned to his office in the church. Moments later a bomb exploded just outside the thick walls that form the church's courtyard.

The July 12 blast was so strong that it was heard across Baghdad. Bishop Warduni rushed out of St. Mary's to a scene of smoke, dust and blood. The explosion had killed two of his parishioners and wounded 25. The bomb, which had been hidden in a car parked across the street from the church, left a crater in the asphalt more than 10 feet wide and several feet deep.

St. Mary was only one of nine Christian churches that were bombed in Baghdad and Mosul (in northern Iraq) over that weekend.

"People are very angry, very upset," Bishop Warduni told Our Sunday Visitor. "These attacks are against all Iraqis, not only Christians."

'Get out or...'

That might be true, but since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Islamic terrorists in Iraq have ruthlessly targeted Iraq's Christians. Terrorists have singled out and attacked Iraqi Christians, accusing them of being allies of the American "invaders," since many Americans are Christian. The latest U.N. statistics show that although Iraq's Christians make up less than 5 percent of the nation's population, they account for more than 40 percent of Iraq's refugees. Prior to 2003 there were some 1.5 million Iraqi Christians. Now, 1 in 3 has either been killed, fled Iraq or is an internally displaced person -- refugees in their own country.

No group has yet come forward to take responsibility for the bombings. "We are used to knowing when al-Qaida did things like this, but no one has taken responsibility for the attacks, which is unusual," said Sargon Slewa, director general of Ashur Satellite TV, an Assyrian Christian-run television channel headquartered in Baghdad.

"The group that did this has two messages: one for the international community and one for Iraq's Christians," Slewa told OSV. "In the case of the international community they are saying, 'we are still here and the security system in Iraq is still bad.' For us Christians, these bombs are meant to keep us thinking about emigration -- leaving Iraq."

Not widely reported is that most of the bombs used in these attacks were small devices concealed in boxes or paper bags. "These bombs were made to make noise and send a message to Iraqi Christians: get out or be killed," said Slewa.

Raw reminder

Small or not, these attacks are a raw reminder that life for Christians in Iraq is uncertain, brutish and getting worst. As of June 30, in accordance with a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement, all U.S. troops have pulled out of Iraq's urban areas. All remaining U.S. forces, except for a small group of advisers, are scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

"These attacks are not new, but they have intensified around the U.S. troop withdrawal," said Slewa. "There is certainly a direct relation between the June 30 troop withdrawal and these bombings."

"Unfortunately, [that] is correct -- these attacks are not new," said Michael Youash, project director for the Iraq Sustainability Democracy Project, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. "In fact, our sources received warning of these attacks by way of text messages, days before they occurred. These sources immediately passed the information on to U.S. forces, who, we were assured, notified the Iraqi military. There was clearly a failure to take preventative steps by Iraqi and U.S. forces."

If Iraqi security forces did receive advance warning of the attacks and were unable to prevent them, this, too, would not be new. "For the past six years, the Christians of Iraq have been the target of a sophisticated and a systematic plan of religious and ethnic cleaning," said Juliana Taimoorazy, president of the Chicago-based Iraqi Christian Relief Council (ICRC). The ICRC exists to educate Americans about the violence directed at Christians in Iraq.

"Since 2003," Taimoorazy said, "Iraqi Christians have suffered church bombings, the murder of their clergymen, and even beheadings of men and women who refuse to betray their Christian faith."

"It is imperative to mention that atrocities committed against Iraq's Christians are not the main reason for their flight from their country," she said. "These Christians -- Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriacs -- are also being stripped of basic rights in their own land. They are being denied such basic rights as access to employment and housing, not to mention fair representation in Iraq's new government."

'Myth of equality'

As U.S. forces continue to leave Iraq, the future for Iraqi Christians will be found in the emerging U.S. and Iraqi policies concerning religious minorities. Until very recently those policies had not gotten off to a promising start. "The U.S. State Department has no policy that recognizes the unique and precarious situation for Iraq's Christian population," Youash said.

"Instead, the United States has adopted a policy of equal attention to all victims of violence in Iraq. The effect of this policy," he said, "is to promote a 'myth of equality' among victims of the violence in Iraq. This myth has made the severity of the situation for Iraq's Christians largely invisible and is, in the end, driving them out of Iraq."

Youash said the bombing underscores the urgent need for the U.S. government to develop a policy that will do a better job of protecting Iraq's ethnic and religious minorities.

The U.S. Congress recently affirmed its support for Iraq's Christians in mid July. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) proposed that "not less than $20 million" be spent to aid defenseless minorities such as the Assyrian Christians in Iraq.

In a prepared statement, Kirk said that "we have tremendous concerns about safe and secure and sustainable homes and businesses for Iraq's embattled Christian minority."

In Baghdad, Bishop Warduni had little to say about the political dealings of the United States and Iraq: "I do not know much about this. ... Such things are for the politicians to say."

"But let me ask everybody of good will and all our fellow Christians to pray for peace all over the world, and in Iraq, for security," he said. "We must live together, with honor, loving one another."

Christians in Iraq

Most Iraqi Christians are ethnically Assyrian, descendants of the Assyrian Empire, whose capital was Nineveh, where God sent Jonah to preach repentance. Assyrians have been in the Middle East for over 6,000 years.

The Assyrians received Christianity from St. Thomas the Apostle in the first century. Islam came to Iraq in 633 from what is now Saudi Arabia. Christians (and Jews) living in Iraq were denied rights of citizenship by the invading Muslims. For almost 1,500 years, Christians in Iraq have been subject to Islamic law but not fully protected by it.

Christians in Iraq can be divided into three main groups: Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac. Of these three, only the Chaldean Church is in full communion with the Church in Rome.

In 1915 the Islamic Ottoman Empire began a campaign to rid itself of Assyrians and other Christians. Known as the "year of the sword," 1915 marks one of the darkest periods in Assyrian Christian history. An estimated half million Assyrian Christians were murdered. The remaining Assyrian Christians were driven from their homeland and forced to settle elsewhere around the world.

Jeff Gardner writes from Wisconsin.