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(AINA) -- A Christian bishop received a threatening letter written by Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish Muslim group affiliated with al-Qaeda in Iraq. The letter ordered the Christians to leave Iraq en masse and stated it is sending a final warning to Christians in Baghdad and other Iraqi governorates to leave Iraq permanently.

ISTANBUL, November 14 (Compass Direct News) – In this Turkish city’s working-class neighborhood of Kurtulus, Arabic can be heard on the streets, signs are printed in the Arabic alphabet and Iraqis congregate in tea shops. In 99-percent Muslim Turkey, most of these Iraqis are not Muslims. And they are not in Turkey by choice. They are Christian refugees who fled their homeland to escape the murderous violence that increasingly has been directed at them. It is hard to tell how many of Mosul’s refugees from the recent wave of attacks have made their way to Istanbul, but finding these residents...

Two Christian sisters were shot dead and their mother stabbed by a Muslim mob just one day after it was reported that Iraqi Christians were returning to their homes in Mosul after fleeing Muslim persecution about one month ago.

MOSUL (Reuters) -- Gunmen have killed two Christian sisters and wounded their mother in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which has seen thousands of Christians flee their homes because of violence in recent weeks, police said. Some 2,000 families, an estimated 12,000 people, fled Mosul after a campaign of threats and attacks against the Christian community last month, although many have since returned home, the United Nations refugee agency says. In the latest incident, gunmen killed one woman outside her home, then stormed the house, killing her sister and wounding their mother.

MOSUL, Iraq—Odisho Yousif's job every two weeks or so was to take money raised on behalf of church families, people victimized by violence, kidnapping, or persecution mostly in Baghdad, and deliver it to them or their church. Almost since the war began, Iraqis living in the United States and elsewhere in the diaspora, as well as Iraqis with secure livelihoods in the north, became a kind of life support system. When a family lost its grocery store due to a bombing, or a relative had to raise ransom after a kidnapping, the support system kicked in. Yousif, 61, a lay...

In Iraq, the persecution of Christians continues, as murders and a mass exodus contradict Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's promise of security for everyone. Churches are trying to help the refugees, and some may come to Germany -- if the government settles on a plan. The long trip from Mosul to Baghdad traverses a bombed highway along the Tigris River, through a wasteland in central Iraq left behind by five years of war. For Rami Kamil, 43, his wife and their children, the journey was an escape from the growing prospect of being murdered in Mosul. Last Tuesday, at 6 a.m.,...

Urged by the appeal of Benedict XVI, Rabban Al Qas, bishop of Ammadiya and Erbil, asks prime minister al Maliki and the American forces to accept responsibility for the violence afflicting Christians, the result of an intolerant fundamentalism that has never been halted. A request to the Islamic world as well, that it condemn what is taking place in Mosul. Tomorrow in Erbil, a meeting of Chaldean bishops and of the Vatican nuncio. Erbil (AsiaNews) - The situation in Mosul (in northern Iraq) remains incendiary. In just a few weeks, there have been 14 deaths and more than 10,000 Christians...

One grey-haired woman understands more than most the fear that has gripped Iraq's beleaguered Christian community over the past month. Her brother, Bashar al-Hazim, was among the first to be murdered in a wave of targeted killings that has forced more than 2,000 Christian families to flee the northern city of Mosul. Masked gunmen walked up to Mr Hashim as he stood with his two children outside their house in the east-side of Mosul in late September. They demanded to see his identity card, confirmed he was Christian and executed the 41-year-old on the spot. "I could have died when...

Thousands of Christians have fled Iraq's second-largest city after a dozen people were murdered in the worst week of violence against the faithful since the US-led invasion. Around 4,000 Christians have escaped Mosul in northern Iraq to neighbouring villages, creating a potential humanitarian nightmare as winter approaches. Many left without any possessions after receiving written threats, and militants blew up at least three Christian homes after chasing out the owners. The Iraqi government has sent 2,500 additional police to the city to protect churches. The refugees now face a bleak winter without any food or shelter in what aid workers...

Who is behind the attacks on Christians in Mosul? The Iraqi government says it does not believe that this is al Qaeda, while media sources note that most of the people struck lived in the area controlled by Kurdish militias. The Kurdish regional government denounces the "malign efforts" of those who want to "conceal the truly guilty," denounced as "religious fanatics," and "orders" all ministers to help those who have been struck. The exchange of accusations over responsibility for the attacks against Christians in Mosul seems to confirm the at least predominantly political nature of what is taking place in...

At least 1,300 Christian families have fled the Iraqi city of Mosul after an upsurge of violence against them by Muslim extremists, the authorities say. Thousands of people have sought refuge in outlying villages since last week after a dozen Christians were murdered, said local official Jawdat Ismail. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has vowed to protect the community. About a third of Iraq's estimated 800,000 Christians are believed to have fled abroad since the invasion of 2003. Mr Ismail, head of Mosul's bureau of displaced people, said food and other aid is being distributed to those who have recently...

BAGHDAD — A church in the northern city of Mosul was bombed Tuesday as Christians continued to leave the city to escape recent violence that has been directed at them. Several church leaders accused the Iraqi government of trying to cover up the extent of the problems facing Christians there and of overstating its success in improving security in Mosul, one of the country’s most volatile cities. As the government announced plans on Tuesday to send officials to Mosul to assist the Christian community, the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who is believed to be in Iran, sent some of...

Several months ago I reported that Iraq was turning into the Islamic Republic of Iraq . As Christianity is clearly under attack there. Today a new report comes out showing that the situation for Iraqi Christians has gotten even worse. They have been told to convert, pay jizyah or die. We have let the Islamic genie out of the bottle in Iraq.

BAGHDAD — Hundreds of terrified Christian families have fled Mosul to escape extremist attacks that have increased despite months of U.S. and Iraqi military operations to secure the northern Iraqi city, political and religious officials said Saturday. Some 3,000 Christians have fled the city over the past week alone in a "major displacement," said Duraid Mohammed Kashmoula, the governor of northern Iraq's Ninevah province. He said most have left for churches, monasteries and the homes of relatives in nearby Christian villages and towns. "The Christians were subjected to abduction attempts and paid ransom, but now they are subjected to a...

BAGHDAD — Christians in Mosul are fleeing their homes after a spate of killings this week that left 12 Christians dead in one of the largest Christian communities in Iraq . The killings follow large protests by the community last month against the passage of the provincial elections law. An article that would give representation to Christians and other minorities was removed from the law before its passage. Now the last safe haven for Christians is gone, said Canon Andrew White the vicar of St. George's church in Baghdad . After a spree of killings and forced evictions of Iraqi...

CWN.org - Iraqi Christians are protesting the parliament's decision to stop seating minorities on the country's 18 provincial councils. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sent a letter to lawmakers appealing to them to restore the quota system for all minorities. Hundreds of Christians protested in the streets following church services Sunday. Militants have targeted Christians since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The violence has forced many Christians to flee the country. Keith Roderick of Christian Solidarity International told CBN News that parliament's action will probably cause more to leave. "It sends a clear message that really we don't want you here,"...

I can’t let this one go by. Welcome to the future if we let Islamic fundamentalists/extremists win the War on Terror. ... Mosul (AsiaNews) - A new attack against the Christians in Mosul: yesterday afternoon, an armed group assassinated Hazim Thomaso Youssif, age 40.The ambush took place in front of his clothing store in Bab Sarray; it is not yet known who ordered the killing, but it is suspected that it is the work of Islamic fundamentalists, in a city that has long been the theater of deadly attacks on the Christian community.

09/02/2008 17:26IRAQFresh violence in Mosul, two Christians kidnapped and killedThe kidnapping of two Christians has ended in tragedy, after the family of one paid a ransom of 20,000 dollars. The community of Mosul hopes that the Muslims will strongly condemn the murders. Mosul (AsiaNews) - The Iraqi Christian community is again in the sights of Islamic fundamentalists in Mosul: today news came of the death of a 65-year-old doctor, Tariq Qattan, kidnapped recently by a terrorist group. AsiaNews sources say that his family had paid a ransom of 20,000 U.S. dollars. But it was not enough money to free Tariq...

Washington DC, Aug 19, 2008 / 05:00 am (CNA).- Next month, InsideCatholic.com will honor Cardinal Mar Emmanuel III Delly, Archbishop of Baghdad and recognize the struggle of Iraqi Christians at its 13th Annual Partnership Dinner.According to InsideCatholic.com, each year, “the Partnership Award is presented to a distinguished Catholic leader who has shown courage and dedication to his or her life and work.”  Past recipients have included: Archbishop Charles Chaput, Fr. Benedict Groeschel, Admiral Jeremiah Denton, Tom Monaghan, Dr. Robby George, Henry Hyde, Fr. Thomas Williams, LC, and Eduardo Verastegui.This year’s ceremony, which will take place on September 19 at the...

Iraq's Christians have taken up arms and formed new militias in a desperate effort to defend their beleaguered communities from an onslaught by Islamic extremists. link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/2463208/Iraqs-Christians-form-new-militias-to-combat-Islamic-extremists.html

Iraq's Christians have taken up arms and formed new militias in a desperate effort to defend their beleaguered communities from an onslaught by Islamic extremists. In the five years since the Anglo-American invasion of 2003, murders and abductions have driven about half of the 800,000 Christians who once lived in Iraq to flee the country. Checkpoints manned by civilians armed with heavy machine guns and assault rifles have received official backing in Christian villages on the Ninevah plain in northern Iraq, where their presence dates back to the missions of St Thomas the apostle. Father Yusuf Yohannes combines the duties...

Pope Benedict told Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Friday that minority Christians in Iraq needed more protection but the Iraqi leader assured him that Christians were not being persecuted. Maliki, who met the pope for 20 minutes at the pontiff's summer residence south of Rome, invited the pontiff to visit Iraq, saying a trip there would help the process of peace and reconciliation. "We renewed our invitation for His Holiness to visit Iraq. He welcomed the invitation. And we hope that he will be making the visit as soon as he can," he told reporters in the palace after...

Pope Benedict receives PM Nouri Al-Maliki Vatican City, Jul 25, 2008 / 10:31 am (CNA).- Today at Castelgandolfo, the Holy Father met with Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri Kamel Al-Maliki.  During the course of their meeting, Pope Benedict stressed the need to end violence in the country, and received an invitation to visit Iraq. According to a press release from the Vatican, their discussion, “provided an opportunity to examine a number of fundamental aspects of the situation in Iraq,” and its surrounding region.The heads of stated focused on the struggles of the “many Iraqi refugees, both inside and outside...

Rome, 23 July (AKI) - Pope Benedict XVI will meet Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki on Friday for the first time during his official visit to Italy. Al-Maliki is due to arrive in Rome on Thursday to meet his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi on the second leg of his European visit after talks with German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, in Berlin on Tuesday. The Iraqi prime minister will meet the Pope at the pontiff's summer residence at Castelgandolfo, outside Rome. He will then hold separate talks with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state. Iraq is home to the Chaldean...

SYDNEY, Australia (CNS) -- For some participants at World Youth Day, the joy of welcoming Pope Benedict XVI to the World Youth Day celebration July 17 was dampened by the absence of a Chaldean Catholic delegation from Iraq. Salina Hasham, a World Youth Day employee, has been working for months trying to get the 170-member Iraqi delegation to Sydney. At first, it seemed the Australian government would not issue any visas to the group, Hasham said. Then 10 visas were granted and, finally, a total of 25 visas were approved. But as of July 17, she said, "they are stuck...

BAGHDAD (ANS) -- The Reverend Canon Andrew White, affectionately known as The Vicar of Baghdad, says the situation for Christians in Iraq is "clearly worse" than under the Saddam Hussein regime, toppled by US and Coalition forces in 2003. In a segment of the CBS news program 60 Minutes, originally broadcast on Dec. 2, 2007, updated June 26 and aired on June 29, 2008, correspondent Scott Pelley asked Canon White: "You were here during Saddam’s reign. And now after. Which was better? Which was worse?" "The situation now is clearly worse” than under Saddam, White replied. "There’s no comparison between...

The nature and extent of the violations of religious freedom were not only severe, they also were tolerated by the government and, in some cases, committed by forces within the government. As such, a bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom included Iraq on a "watch list" of countries where religious liberty is severely threatened. Religious leaders have made numerous attempts to broker resolutions. In 2007, American president George W. Bush recounted, the pontiff " was concerned that the society that was evolving (in Iraq) would not tolerate the Christian religion." Indeed, Iraqi Christians have continued to find themselves in...

Baghdad, IRAQ - Senior research fellow, Brian J. Grim, paints a harrowing picture of the ongoing persecution of Iraqi Christians.  The research expert on religion and world affairs with the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in Washington, D.C. reports that the situation for Christians in Iraq is worsening.  “It is no small irony, of course, that the Shiite majority that's now a leading force in Iraq was brutalized and suppressed under Saddam, who extensively curbed the Shiites' religious freedoms. A State Department report in 2002 said Saddam's government ‘severely restricts or bans outright many Shiite religious practices.’...

When I report this news, I do not mean any offense to the coalition troops fighting in Iraq. They are the greatest fighting force on the planet, but there is only so much they can do. I caught the beginning of Bill O'Reilly tonight, the talking points segment. He said that Islamofascism in Iraq has almost been defeated. This is just not true. For the rest..... http://islaminaction08.blogspot.com/2008/07/islamic-republic-of-iraq-part-1.html

An Islamist group has sent threatening letters to Assyrian churches in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, asking them not to cooperate with US forces. The letter sent by The Batallion of Just Punishment, Jihad Base in Mesopotamia, also opposes the establishment of a sectarian Assyrian-Christian police force, reported the Assyrian International News Agency on Wednesday. "We caution and warn anyone who tries to rob us through dealings with the Americans or through the spreading of American forces and/or police to protect the Holy Shrines in the Islamic Republic of Iraq, that these shrines would remain target of the freedom...

The Second Amendment and Islamic lawby Robert Spencer  Posted 07/02/2008 ET The Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the Second Amendment comes just as it has been revealed that in Iraq, Islamic jihadists have been forcing the Christians remaining in the country to pay jizya -- the tax mandated in the Qur’an for non-Muslims who live under Islamic rule. And in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, the Taliban has been enforcing Islamic Sharia law by waving automatic weapons, forcing music stores to close down at the point of a gun (music is forbidden in Islamic law). Maybe if Iraq and Afghanistan had the...

The Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the Second Amendment comes just as it has been revealed that in Iraq, Islamic jihadists have been forcing the Christians remaining in the country to pay jizya – the tax mandated in the Qur’an for non-Muslims who live under Islamic rule. And in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, the Taliban has been enforcing Islamic Sharia law by waving automatic weapons, forcing music stores to close down at the point of a gun (music is forbidden in Islamic law).

The fate of the Christians in Iraq should not have come as a complete surprise. It is true that some believed that the kind of Iraqis in exile they met, the soft-spoken thoroughly westernized chalabis and makiyas, who were Representative men, and would, with others like them, inherit Iraq. Really? Was that ever plausible? Here was the worldly, smiling, slippery eye-always-on-the-main-chance Chalabi, a man who had lived in the West since the age of 14 (he left Iraq at the time of Qassem’s coup, and the overturning of the monarchy, back in 1958). He had become thoroughly used to London,...

The New York Times (June 26, 2008) has published a somber account of the recent murder of Iraqi Archbishop Rahho, and how the Iraqi Christian population has been subjected to the full recrudescence of dhimmitude, punctuated by the re-application of the jizya-the Koranic (Koran 9:29) poll tax on non-Muslims, whose etymology, as per the seminal Arabic lexicographer, E.W. Lane, belies its origins: "the tax paid in lieu of being slain." Here is a classical formulation of the jizya -- the cornerstone of the repressive system of jihad-imposed dhimmitude -- from, coincidentally, a seminal Baghdadian jurist, al-Mawardi (d. 1058). In his...

MOSUL, Iraq — As priests do everywhere, Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, the leader of the Chaldean Catholics in this ancient city, gathered alms at Sunday Mass. But for years the money, a crumpled pile of multicolored Iraqi dinars, went into an envelope and then into the hand of a man who had threatened to kill him and his entire congregation. “What else could he do?” asked Ghazi Rahho, a cousin of the archbishop. “He tried to protect the Christian people.” But American military officials now say that as security began to improve around Iraq last year, Archbishop Rahho, 65, stopped...

Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Baghdad warned this week that there is an effort underway “to rid the Middle East of Christians.” According to the bishop, “The war has destroyed everything and even the tradition of coexistence. One-third of Christians have fled the country because of threats, abuse and violence.” The Italian news agency SIR is reporting that the bishop made his comments in an address to the scientific committee of the Oasis International Study and Research Center, which is meeting in Amman, Jordan, to discuss the situation in Iraq. Bishop Shlemon also mentioned the “kidnapping of men of the...

Muslim militants are crucifying children to terrorize their Christian parents into fleeing Iraq, a parliamentary committee studying the persecution of religious minorities heard yesterday. Since the war began in 2003, about 12 children, many as young as 10, have been kidnapped and killed, then nailed to makeshift crosses near their homes to terrify and torment their parents. One infant was snatched, decapitated, burned and left on his mother's doorstep, the committee was told. Filham Isaac, speaking for the Nineveh Advocacy Committee, told the human rights committee that Iraqi Christian churches were bombed, clergy murdered and unveiled Iraqi women raped or...

Sodertalje has taken in more Iraqis than U.S., but mood is changing... SODERTALJE, Sweden - In this lakeside town, once best known as the home of Swedish tennis hero, Bjorn Borg, neighborhoods nicknamed "Little Baghdad" and "Mesopotalje" now echo with arguments over Assyrian soccer. Along the city's tree-lined waterfront, young Iraqi families and groups of older men chat in Arabic, enjoying long summer evenings.

In early June, the German television network ARD aired a film called GOD AND THE WORLD: THE PERSECUTED CHILDREN OF GOD. The “children” referred to are Iraq’s largest Christian community: the Assyrians. While any attention to the plight of Iraqi Christians is welcome, I only wish that the film could have aired in the country that is in the best position to help them: the United States. The film tells the story of the suffering and persecution endured by Assyrian Christians through interviews with Christian refugees - or “internally displaced persons,” as bureaucrats call them - who escaped the most...

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- More than 1,000 refugees from Iraq arrived in the United States in May, the most in recent months, bringing the fiscal-year total to 4,742 so far, the State Department reported June 3. But with just four months left in the fiscal year, the administration's objective of resettling 12,000 Iraqis in the U.S. by October is far from being reached, said Anastasia Brown, director of refugee programs for Migration and Refugee Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She added that even that goal is an inadequate fraction of the estimated 4.9 million Iraqis who have been...

Christians are being severely persecuted in Iraq. German churches are now urging the government to be generous in granting them asylum - and have encountered broad support. The peaceful, idyllic scenery outside their window is completely foreign to them. The house in the western German city of Essen, where they had arrived the previous Wednesday, faces a landscape of small gardens in full bloom. Fascinated, the seven children in the Jalal family are constantly looking out the window. They have come from Mosul in Iraq to Germany's Ruhr region, where their grandparents, who have already been living here for four...

(CNSNews.com) - Days before Sweden hosts an international conference aimed at pushing ahead the political and economic reform process in Iraq, hundreds of exiled Iraqi Christians demonstrated outside the country's parliament Sunday to draw attention to the minority's plight in their homeland. "A new wave of ethnic cleansing is going on in Iraq," Iraqi Christian representative Behiye Hadodo told the gathering. "If these atrocities continue, the Chaldean, Syriac and Assyrian communities there will be wiped out altogether, creating a new catastrophe for humanity." Iraq's Assyrians are a non-Arab ethnic minority located mainly in northeastern Iraq, and adherents of Christian denominations...

Iraqi Christians seeking to resettle in the West should not get special treatment based on religion, said a Roman Catholic cardinal on Monday. Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Oriental Churches, says Western countries should issue visas based on needs and not because the applicant is Christian or Muslim, according to Reuters. “There is a new E.U. solution to take in many Iraqi refugees, Christians and otherwise,” Sandri said to reporters during a visit to Paris. “We will continue to support such efforts.” Last month, the European Union said no specific steps should be taken...

The Archbishop of Kirkuk, Louis Sako, said on Monday that the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq opposed the death penalty passed by an Iraqi court on the convicted killer of an archbishop in Mosul. "This conviction does not meet Christian values," the cleric told AFP when contacted by telephone. "We are not satisfied with this decision because the church is against the death penalty." Iraqi authorities announced on Sunday that Ahmed Ali Ahmed had been sentenced to death for his involvement in the murder of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho in Iraq's northern city of Mosul. Archbishop Sako said the death...

A leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq has been sentenced to death for the killing of the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho. The archbishop of the northern city of Mosul was kidnapped in February by gunmen who attacked his car, killing his driver and two bodyguards. His body was found in a shallow grave two weeks later. The Iraqi government said the criminal court had imposed the death sentence on Ahmed Ali Ahmed, known as Abu Omar. The US embassy in Baghdad welcomed the verdict. Who are the Chaldeans? "Reiterating our condolences to the archbishop's family and community, we commend...

San Jose, CA., May 18, 2008 / 12:40 pm (CNA).- One week ago today leaders of the Chaldean Catholic Church in California formally received into communion a bishop of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, his clergy, and about 3,000 Assyrian Christians. The Assyrian Church, centered in modern-day Iraq, dates back to the earliest days of Christianity.  According to the California Catholic Daily, the church eventually embraced the teachings of Nestorius, the fifth-century Archbishop of Constantinople whose doctrines were condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431.  Beginning in the sixteenth century, large numbers of Nestorian Assyrians came...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A US watchdog on religious freedom on Friday expressed serious concern over violations in strife-torn Iraq and was considering whether to place the ally of Washington on a blacklist with countries such as North Korea and Iran. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom said in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that it was “seriously concerned” about religious freedom conditions in Iraq, where widespread persecution of Christians has been reported. The 10-member commission last year placed Iraq on its “watchlist” but its members were now divided on whether it should be maintained in...

MOSUL, Iraq – Scores of Christian men lined up to join the Iraqi Police force during a recruiting drive in Tall Kayf, 15 km north of Mosul, April 28.The goal of the three-day event was to recruit up to 700 Christians to join the police force to help protect their respective communities in Mosul.“This recruiting drive will help bolster the economy through employment, in addition to bolstering the security effort,” said Col. Michael Bills, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.-30-

Thousands of Christians fleeing persecution in other parts of Iraq have returned since 2004 to ancestral lands in the Nineveh Plain, just north and east of Mosul. While they have escaped the Islamic militias who slaughtered family members and burned down their houses and churches in Baghdad and Mosul, now they face a new battle. Today’s enemies are poverty, joblessness, and despair. Jamal Dinha, mayor of Bartella, a large Christian village east of Mosul, painted a dire picture of the life these persecuted Christians now face in this Kurdish-controlled safe haven. “The situation in our region is critical. Our young...

The Kurdish regional government in Northern Iraq is providing a safe haven to several thousand Iraqi Christians who have fled persecution in other parts of the country, government officials and local pastors told Newsmax. Unlike refugee camps set up for some 100,000 Shia Muslims fleeing attacks from Sunnis, which are closely monitored by Kurdish security forces, Christians have been encouraged to live anywhere. “Christians in Iraq need special attention, because they’ve been suffering because they are Christians,” Deputy Prime Minister Omar Fattah told Newsmax in an exclusive interview in Erbil. “Maybe we give some instructions to others where they can...