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Christians fleeing Iraq after death threats
Telegraph ^ | 5/09/07 | Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent

Posted on 05/09/2007 8:52:58 AM PDT by AuntB

Iraq's Christian community is close to extinction as thousands are forced to flee their traditional strongholds in Baghdad.

Iraq's Christian community is close to extinction as thousands are forced to flee Baghddad Islamic extremists have increasingly targeted Iraqi Chrisitans demanding they convert

An exodus of Christians is under way in the southern district of Dora after groups affiliated to al-Qa'eda issued a threat of "convert or be killed".

Most have fled to Kurdish northern Iraq, where the village of Ankawa has grown into an overcrowded "city of Christ", while others leave for Syria or Jordan.

Priests claim that half Baghdad's pre-2003 Christian population - estimated in the hundreds of thousands - has fled or been killed. They also claim that the Iraqi government is failing to protect them.

Father Bashar Warda of the St Peter Major Seminary, relocated from Dora to Ankawa, said yesterday: "We are afraid the government of Iraq has a common understanding with those making the threats that Christians have no future in this country."

Fr Warda said one priest had registered 70 displaced families in the past 10 days.

Father Raymond Moussalli, a spokesman for the Christian refugees, said Dora's seven churches had closed.

"We cannot hold on," he said. "The Muslims have issued warnings 'convert or you will be killed'. Heads have been cut off statues outside our churches. People are being killed just for their faith."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: christians; iraq; refugees; securityplan; surge; wot

1 posted on 05/09/2007 8:53:04 AM PDT by AuntB
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To: AuntB

People are being killed in Iraq simply for their faith...modern day martyrs...

Who is killing them? Intolerant muslims. Convert or die?

MSM!!! Get some courage and integrity. Report!!!


2 posted on 05/09/2007 9:01:28 AM PDT by milford421 (U.N. OUT OF U.S.)
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To: AuntB

This more than anything else, demostrates the fact that our enemies are not just Al Quaida - that is only one head on a many-headed hydra called Islam.

We are at war with Islam. Islam is at war with the non-Islamic world - Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Sikh, you name it. This is a lunatic religion run by fanatical killers who have the nerve to call themselves clerics and whose sole objective to kill or convert the rest of the world. They make NAZIs and Commies look almost commical compared to them.


3 posted on 05/09/2007 9:02:01 AM PDT by ZULU (Non nobis, non nobis Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. God, guts and guns made America great.)
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To: ZULU

You hit the nail on the head. Let these psychos take control anywhere and this is what you will get. We need to kill more of them to get the rest to settle down.

It seems interesting that apparently Saddam Hussein was somewhat more benign in his policies. Not that I’d want him back, of course.


4 posted on 05/09/2007 9:06:00 AM PDT by henkster (Al Gore is the second coming...of Trofim Lysenko)
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To: henkster

“It seems interesting that apparently Saddam Hussein was somewhat more benign in his policies.”

I wouldn’t call him benign. He was just multicultural in his persecutions and apparently he understood what techniques were needed to control nutjob Sunni and Shiites.

We should have replaced him with a pro-western less malignant military strong man running a secular state and used Iraq to finish off Iran and Syria and then pulled out, instead of trying to convert it into a Democracy. These people are not ready for democracy and never will be as long as they follow Islam.


5 posted on 05/09/2007 9:09:00 AM PDT by ZULU (Non nobis, non nobis Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. God, guts and guns made America great.)
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To: milford421

Why should they. Members of the MSM are watching all this approvingly.


6 posted on 05/09/2007 9:09:21 AM PDT by 353FMG (Liberalism is a satanic cult.)
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To: henkster

Saddam Hussein wasn’t a real Muslim. He was a mafioso thug who used Islam as it suited him to keep power.


7 posted on 05/09/2007 9:10:33 AM PDT by Borges
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To: 353FMG

“Why should they. Members of the MSM are watching all this approvingly.”

You’re right...until they come for them.

Some folks really do allow history to repeat itself.


8 posted on 05/09/2007 9:12:13 AM PDT by milford421 (U.N. OUT OF U.S.)
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To: ZULU
If we're supposed to be at war with Islam, then this stupid war in Iraq became a complete fraud the moment we allowed the Iraqi government to adopt a new constitution in which Islam was enshrined as the official state religion.

These Christians in Iraq know exactly what's going on, and they know damn well that the U.S. is not on their side.

9 posted on 05/09/2007 9:14:32 AM PDT by Alberta's Child
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To: milford421

The cleansing of Christians, much of it by our Shi’ite and Sunni allies in the Iraqi government, is another example of how this war has been a dismal failure. Ron Paul was right about this nation building disaster from the beginning.


10 posted on 05/09/2007 9:15:35 AM PDT by Austin Willard Wright
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To: Austin Willard Wright

I never believed that nation building would work in Iraq from the beginning, but I don’t believe the Iraq war has been a dismal failure either.


11 posted on 05/09/2007 9:19:47 AM PDT by milford421 (U.N. OUT OF U.S.)
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To: milford421

Why don’t you believe it was dismal failure? Isn’t this alone a stunning example of that fact?


12 posted on 05/09/2007 9:21:04 AM PDT by Austin Willard Wright
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To: ZULU
"Al Quaida - that is only one head on a many-headed hydra called Islam."

Bump Well stated.

13 posted on 05/09/2007 9:23:30 AM PDT by jpsb
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To: Austin Willard Wright

“Why don’t you believe it was dismal failure? Isn’t this alone a stunning example of that fact?”

On the first question, for a number of reasons.

On the second, no, unfortunately it isn’t.

The scenario has been replayed throughout the middle east in various countries, by different sects for a great many years.

It is, sadly, nothing new.


14 posted on 05/09/2007 9:25:42 AM PDT by milford421 (U.N. OUT OF U.S.)
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To: AuntB

The problem for Christians is where to run. Going to Jordan or Syria only means one day they will have to move again as those Islamic countries become more hostile for Christians.

Even if they could go to Europe ,Europe is becoming Islamic also,its just a matter of time.


15 posted on 05/09/2007 9:26:10 AM PDT by sgtbono2002 (I will forgive Jane Fonda, when the Jews forgive Hitler.)
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To: Austin Willard Wright
"Why don’t you believe it was dismal failure??

This war will be just as successful as Clinton Kosovo war. (Helping Muslims get rid of Christians)

16 posted on 05/09/2007 9:30:49 AM PDT by jpsb
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To: Alberta's Child

“they know damn well that the U.S. is not on their side.”

Increasingly, Americans have come to realize the present Administration is not on America’s side either. Republicans are very unhappy with this President. Had he behaved at the start of his term the way he has been behaving lately, he might have been impeached by his own party.

Bush has made a career pandering to Muslims since 9-11. He just could NOT finger in his speeches the real source of terrorism - implying by his silence on the subject that we were fighting rogue Swedes or Japanese instead of Muslims. Although he mentioned Iran, Syria and Iraq in his 9-11 as terror states, he failed to connect the lines. By allowing dimwits like Norman Minetta to have his security police frisk little old Scandinavian ladies from Minnesota instead of obvious Arab types, and by his total submission to the Mexicans in their plot to destroy our national integrity and the security of our southern borders, I’m surprised that the recent incident at Fort Dix New Jersey hadn’t been replicated earlier with greater efficacy by individuals with at least partially funtioning brains.

Bush has gone from disappointment to disgrace. I hope we have a real choice in 2008 with someone decent like Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, Huckabee, or even perhaps Gingrich instead of the ideological Bush clones of Romney, Giuliani or McCain.

Our real enemy is Islam. Al Quaida is just one of its many faces, however benevolent some of them may seem. There common goal is the same purpose.


17 posted on 05/09/2007 9:32:24 AM PDT by ZULU (Non nobis, non nobis Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. God, guts and guns made America great.)
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To: sgtbono2002

We should invite them HERE.

They are living testamony to the horror of Muslim control and they and their children will never forgive or forget Islam and what it did to their culture and society.

A lot of these people are Assyrian and Chaldean Christians. The Assyrians and Chaldeans were living in Mesopotamia long before the bandit Arab followers of Mohammad took it over.


18 posted on 05/09/2007 9:36:15 AM PDT by ZULU (Non nobis, non nobis Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. God, guts and guns made America great.)
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To: sgtbono2002
I would not give up on Europe just yet. Europe is very good a killing too, once properly motovated and I think Europe is beginning to get motovated.The only good thing that will come from our failure in Iraq is a properly motovated Europe. Europe is now effectively surrounded by the nation of Islam.
19 posted on 05/09/2007 9:36:17 AM PDT by jpsb
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