Churches Bombed In Mosul Reuters

Churches Bombed in Mosul

Reuters reports that guerrillas in Mosul cleared two churches and then blew them up. There were no injuries, but extensive damage was done to an Armenian and an old Chaldean church. Mosul, a city of 1.2 million, has a substantial Christian population (Christians form about 3 percent of the Iraqi population).

Christian leaders in Iraq have threatened to form a militia for self-protection. The guerrillas have targeted Iraqi Christians on more than one occasion, associating them with the Christian foreigners now occupying Iraq. (This association is unfair, since the Chaldean Christians represent a culture that is older than Islam in Iraq; but such links are made).

The church bombings underscore the way in which images from Iraq are competing with the images favored by the Bush administration.

A US soldier was killed by guerrilla rifle fire in Baghdad.

Four Iraqi National Guardsmen were killed in separate incidents.