Blasts hit Iraq churches; 11 die, 50-plus hurt

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Assailants triggered a coordinated series of explosions outside five churches in Baghdad and Mosul during Sunday evening services, killing 11 people and wounding more than 50 in the first major assault on Iraq's Christian minority since the 15-month-old insurgency began.

In separate violence, a suicide car bombing outside a police station in Mosul killed five people and injured 53, and three roadside bombs in Iraq killed four, including a U.S. soldier, and wounded six, police said. A drive-by shooting north of Baghdad late Sunday killed three police officers and wounded three others.

The bloodshed followed a night of clashes between U.S. troops and insurgents that killed 12 Iraqis and wounded 39 others in Fallujah.

The unprecedented attacks against Iraq's 750,000-member Christian minority seemed to confirm community members' fears they might be targeted as suspected collaborators with American forces amid a rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism.

"What are the Muslims doing? Does this mean that they want us out?" Brother Louis, a deacon at Our Lady of Salvation, asked as he cried outside the damaged Assyrian Catholic church. "Those people who commit these awful criminal acts have nothing to do with God. They will go to hell."

The wave of explosions - at least four of them car bombings - began after 6 p.m. as parishioners gathered inside their neighborhood churches for services. The blasts shattered stained-glass windows and sent churchgoers running into the streets, screaming and clutching their bleeding heads.

Fire engines and ambulances raced to the scenes of the bombings as black smoke poured into the sky and U.S. attack helicopters circled overhead.

The explosions came just minutes apart and hit four churches in Baghdad - two in Karada, one in the Dora neighborhood and one in New Baghdad. A fifth church was hit in Mosul, about 220 miles north of the capital. The attacks did not appear to be suicide bombings, U.S. military and Iraqi officials said.