BAGHDAD: Iraq's Christian community was grieving and afraid Monday after militants seized a Baghdad church during evening Mass, held the congregation hostage and triggered a raid by Iraqi security forces. The bloodbath left at least 58 people killed and 78 wounded - nearly everyone inside. The attack, claimed by an Al-Qaeda-linked organization, was the deadliest ever recorded against Iraq's Christians, whose numbers have plummeted since the 2003 US-led invasion as the community has fled to other countries. Sunday's carnage began at dusk, when a deadly car bomb went off in the area. Militants wearing suicide vests and armed with grenades then attacked the Iraqi stock exchange, injuring two guards. The car bombing and the attack on the stock exchange may have been an attempt by the militants to divert attention from their real target - the nearby church in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood. That attack soon followed. The gunmen went inside the church and took about 120 Christians hostage. At least 58 people were killed, including 12 policemen as well as five bystanders thought to have been killed by the car bombing and blasts outside the church before the attackers stormed inside. Forty-one Christians inside the church also died, including two priests. Iraqi officials had initially provided a much lower death toll. Witnesses said hostages died both before and during the rescue. They described a terrifying scene in which they desperately tried to shield themselves from the violence. An Iraqi official said he talked on a cell phone with one of the hostages during the siege. He said the hostage described how insurgents began shooting wildly when they went into the church and that he could see about 40 wounded people lying around him on the floor. During the hours that followed, an eerie quiet descended on the building, punctuated only by quiet weeping, according to Naamat. “Most people were too afraid to produce a sound. They feared militants would kill them if they heard them,” Naamat said. Naamat said he heard one of the attackers talking to what he thought was Iraqi security, threatening to blow themselves up if Iraqi forces stormed the building. The Iraqi official who spoke by phone with one of the hostages said he also had a four-minute phone conversation with a militant, who demanded that authorities release all Al-Qaeda-linked prisoners starting with the women. The official said he judged by the militant's accent and speech that he was not Iraqi. The militants also called an Egyptian television station, Al-Baghdadia, during the hostage siege, repeating their demand that their colleagues be released.
