Telegraph | News | Christians flee genocide as fear sweeps Iraq

Telegraph | News | Christians flee genocide as fear sweeps Iraq: "Christians flee genocide as fear sweeps Iraq
By Jack Fairweather at St Matthew's Monastery near Mosul
(Filed: 08/01/2005)

One of the most ancient monasteries in the world, St Matthew's, stands on a barren mountainside in northern Iraq, its last inhabitant a crusty old Syrian Orthodox priest. Nestled between sandstone crags with views of the hills around ancient Nineveh, now called Mosul, it looks like the final redoubt of the Christian world.

Seven thousand monks used to worship here; now there is just one, Father Ada Qadr al-Kars.

This thinning of the ranks has taken centuries, he said, but in the valleys Iraq's Christian community, targeted with especial ferocity by Islamic extremists for the past year, is disappearing rapidly.

Churches have been bombed, priests kidnapped and Christian neighbourhoods subjected to random shootings, the terrorists' revenge for the community's shared religion with the 'Christian' invaders.

According to Church leaders, some 300,000 Christians - roughly a quarter of the population - have fled their homes since the US-led invasion."

...US forces rarely intervene, not wanting to be seen to be siding with Christians and thereby exposing the troops to more violence.

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