Christmas Car Bomb near Iraq Church Kills at Least 14

Local Editor

A car bomb targeted a church in the Iraqi capital Wednesday as worshipers left after a Christmas service, killing at least 14 people, most of them Christians, security officials said.

The blast in the Dura area of south Baghdad also wounded more than 30 people, the sources said.
"The attack targeted the church, and most of the martyrs are Christians," a police colonel stated. "The attack happened when worshipers were leaving the church" after a service.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

"Attacks distort the image of Islam and religion, if they are carrying them out in the name of religion," Monsignor Pios Cacha of Baghdad's St. Joseph church told AFP.
"The church is a place of love and peace, and not for wars," Cacha said.
Iraq has seen its Christian population sharply decline in the years since 2003.

Estimates of the number of Christians living in Iraq before 2003 vary from more than one million to around 1.5 million. But now they are estimated at fewer than 500,000.

Violence in Iraq has surged this year to levels not seen since 2008, when the country was just emerging from a brutal period of unrest.
More than 6,650 people have been killed in Iraq since the beginning of 2013, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team