Worse than “animals” Muslim terrorists who took Baghdad church hostage left 51 Christians dead

   Jihad terrorists from Al-Qaeda aligned Islamic State of Iraq attacked Our Lady of Salvation,⁶ a Syrian Catholic church in Baghdad,⁴ during Sunday evening service¹² attended by 120.¹⁰

   The Muslim terrorists killed some worshipers and held the rest hostage while demanding the release of al-Qaeda in Iraq members in Egypt and Iraq.¹⁰ The terrorist who made the demands appeared to be a foreigner as he did not have an Iraqi accent.¹⁰

   The terrorists also said they were avenging "the burning of the Qur'ans and the jailing of Muslim women in Egypt."⁶ The Qur'an burning probably referred to the threatened but later canceled Qur'an burning event by Reverend Terry Jones to protesting an Islamic cultural center being built near Ground Zero.⁹

   The Muslim women allegedly jailed in Egypt were Wafaa Constantine and Camilia Shehata, who Muslims falsely claim, had been abducted and held in Egypt's Coptic Christian monasteries for converting to Islam from Christianity.⁷ These claims had been rejected even by the Sunni authorities of Al Azhar,⁴ the leading Islamic institution in Egypt.⁷

    The church was stormed after 9 p.m. by Iraqi Special Operations troops¹⁰ after learning that some hostages had been executed earlier.¹¹ 51 worshipers, including two priests, at least 8 women, 5 children, and 7 troops were killed during the rescue operation and nearly 60 others were injured.¹⁰ Five of the attackers were also killed and eight of them arrested.¹⁰

   Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the attack was an attempt to [ethnically and religious cleanse and] drive more Christians out of Iraq.² Chaldean Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly claims over a million have already fled the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein.²

   In an internet message claiming responsibility for the attack, Islamic State of Iraq called the church "the dirty den of idolatry"⁸ [although Muslims consider the Kaaba, a black rock in Mecca, as the most sacred site and pray facing it and walk around it during the Hajj] and/or a "den of polytheism".¹⁰

  The Chaldean bishop of Baghdad, Shlimoune Wardouni, condemned the attacks saying, "It's a great sorrow, because this was an inhuman act. Even animals are not doing this to each other".¹


  Some descriptions of the worst than animal behavior

  This from CNN

   Mass was in progress when attackers stormed in⁵

   Silvana Maro said

“They said if anyone lifts their head we will shoot. My cousin moved slightly. They shot him, his brains exploded all over”.⁵

  Anna Hannow held her aunt’s bloodied purse, the stench of death still fresh. Her aunt was eighty years old.⁵

“They shot her in the face, there was nothing left of her face” She told us.⁵

  This report from the Guradian

At sunset yesterday, Raghada al-Wafi walked excitedly to mass with news for the priest who married her a month ago. Tonight, exactly 24 hours later, she returned to the Our Lady of Salvation church – this time carried by her family in a coffin that also contained her unborn child.⁶

Today the priest who blessed her marriage and pregnancy minutes before he was killed will also be buried, as will several dozen other members of his congregation – all of them slain by terrorists⁶

  This report from AP

They ordered the priest to call the Vatican to demand the release of Muslim women who they claimed were being held captive by the Coptic church in Egypt. When the priest said he could not do that, the gunmen shot him and turned their guns on the congregation, killing most of those in the front pew.³

One woman told investigators she survived only because her father wrapped himself around her body in a shield that ultimately killed him.³

Sources: 1. AFP, 2. 3.* AP, 4. AsiaNew.it, 5. CNN, 6. Guardian, 7. National Review, 8. Reuters, 9. The Christian Century, 10. 11. The Washing Post, 12. UPI


Note: The AP report written by Barbara Surk for source number 3 was orignally posted at The San Francisco Chonicle at this link but it has recently been replaced with another story. The original story can still be view at the link given in the sources section, at the time of writing this story.