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| Thursday, 9 December 2004 |
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Churches bombed,US deaths in Iraq mount MOSUL, Iraq, Wednesday (Reuters) Gunmen bombed two churches in the tense Iraqi city of Mosul fuelling fears of ethnic and sectarian unrest ahead of an election next month. President Vladimir Putin of Russia, a fierce opponent of the war, told Iraq's prime minister in Moscow he feared the country could break up and said planned Jan. 30 elections were unimaginable. U.S. troops suffered their 1,000th combat death in Iraq on Tuesday when U.S. soldier was killed in Baghdad. The Pentagon also issued figures for a record monthly U.S. death toll in Iraq. It said 136 American soldiers were killed last month. The previous highest was 135 in April. At least four Iraqi National Guard troopers were also killed in two incidents, one in the capital and another further south. "I cannot imagine how elections can be organised under a full occupation of the country by foreign troops," Putin told Iraq's U.S.-backed interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. "I also cannot imagine how you on your own will be able to restore the situation in the country and stop it from breaking up." Allawi reaffirmed the election date of Jan. 30 but raised the prospect of troubled regions taking two or three weeks longer to vote - a proposal that could not immediately be checked with election officials and would break a U.N. deadline of Jan. 31 for the ballot. A new CIA assessment, reported by the New York Times, gave a gloomy picture of Iraq's future, seeing further insecurity if the government fails to assert itself and promote prosperity. No one was killed nor, it appeared, injured, in the bombings in Mosul; smoke billowed from one of the northern city's Armenian churches and one of its oldest Chaldean churches was ablaze and a wall shattered. The attackers were not identified. The small Christian community of about 650,000 or some 3 percent of the population has suffered from an upsurge in militant Islam since the fall of Saddam's secular regime. Some have fled or closed down traditional businesses, notably selling liquor, which flourished in Iraq despite a Muslim religious ban. At least one Christian leader has been quoted recently saying he would form an armed militia to protect the community. "There were two or three families in the church," one frightened worshipper from Mosul's ancient Tahira Chaldean church told Reuters after the attack on the white stone building, some of which is said to date back to the 7th century. "Gunmen came in, took the guard's weapon and a couple of mobile phones. Then they made everybody leave the church. After that there was an explosion that did a lot of damage," said the man, who asked not to be named for fear of intimidation. |
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