Bomb blasts at Iraqi churches kill at least 15

Car bombs exploded outside at least five Christian churches in Iraq yesterday, killing more than a dozen people and wounding many more in an apparently coordinated attack timed to coincide with evening prayers.

"We are expecting a huge number of casualties," an Interior Ministry source told Reuters, saying there had been four blasts at churches in Baghdad and two in the northern city of Mosul. Police in Mosul said they knew of just one church attack there.

They were the first attacks on churches during the 15-month insurgency.

In the deadliest attack, a suicide car bomber drove into the car park at a Chaldean church in southern Baghdad before detonating his vehicle, killing at least 12 people as worshippers left the building, witnesses said.

The US military has warned that guerillas opposed to the presence of more 160,000 foreign troops may try to deepen divisions between the country's diverse religious communities in their campaign to destabilise Iraq.

A US military spokesman said three of the four attacks in Baghdad were known to be suicide car bombings.

An explosion at the Armenian church in Baghdad shattered stained glass windows and hurled chunks of hot metal.

Another bomb exploded about 15 minutes later outside the nearby Assyrian church, where medics dragged a man from a car, his arm almost torn off.

"Worshippers were inside the church and during the service a bomb went off," said Shakib Moussa Jibrail, a Christian who said his father had been inside the Assyrian church. "Now he is in hospital. His head was hit."

An ambulance driver told Reuters that two people were killed in the explosion at the Assyrian church and several wounded. US Colonel Mike Murray of the 1st Cavalry Division said at least 50 people had been wounded at the church, some seriously.

In Mosul, officials said at least one person was killed in a blast at a church and 15 wounded.

Christians account for about three per cent of the population of Iraq, where attempts to provoke conflict have mainly focused on Sunni Muslims and members of the Shi'ite Muslim majority, who were oppressed by ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

The US military says a computer disk captured earlier this year contained a letter from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant allied to al Qaeda, calling for attacks on Iraqi Shi'ites to try to spark sectarian conflict in Iraq.

Fact Box

Five facts about Christians in Iraq
¤ Christians total about 800,000 or three per cent of Iraq's 24 million population and mainly live in Baghdad. Assyrian Christians, also known as Chaldeans, comprise the biggest group.

¤ Christians are worried that religious tolerance could suffer in post-Saddam Iraq and have said they fear persecution from Muslims who associate them with the US-led occupying forces, who are seen as coming from Christian nations.

¤ Christians were free to worship under Saddam Hussein who, despite his persecution of majority Shi'ites, officially preached religious tolerance.

¤ There have been a string of attacks in recent weeks on alcohol sellers throughout Iraq, most of whom are Christians.

¤ Amnesty International reported in May that 150 Christian families had moved from the southern Iraqi city of Basra to their original homes in northern Iraq because of attacks on Christians.