Head of the Syrian Catholic Church kidnapped in Mosul

dr. what · Post by **dr. what** » 2005-01-17 01:59pm

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Gunmen kidnapped the head of the Catholic Christian community in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Monday as he was walking in front of his church, a priest said.

The gunmen forced Bishop Gorgis into a car and drove away, the priest said on condition of anonymity. The bishop was walking in front of the Al-Bishara church in Mosul's eastern neighborhood of Muhandeseen when he was abducted.

The reason for the kidnapping was unclear, but Christians - tens of thousands of whom live in and around Mosul - have been subjected to attacks in the past.

The priest did not have further details.

Christians make up just 3 percent of Iraq's 26 million people. The major Christian groups in Iraq include Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians. There are small numbers of Catholics.

Officials estimate that as many as 15,000 Iraqi Christians have left the country since August, when four churches in Baghdad and one in Mosul were attacked in a coordinated series of car bombings. The attacks killed 12 people and injured 61 others. Another church was bombed in Baghdad in September.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-01-17 02:03pm

They are trying to clear out the minorities in anticipation of their Religious Reich, the scumbags. And they just upped the Ante.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » 2005-01-17 02:07pm

Any bets on whether any Christians will have as prominent a place in the 'democratic' Iraqi government 10 years from now as Tariq Aziz had under Saddam?

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2005-01-17 02:09pm

It gets better.

The guy is a Catholic Archbishop.

Reuters wrote:VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Catholic archbishop of the Iraqi city of Mosul was kidnapped Monday in what the Vatican called an "act of terrorism."
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told Reuters the Holy See had received news of the kidnapping of Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa in Mosul. The spokesman demanded his immediate release but gave no details of the abduction.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2005-01-17 02:15pm

This is neat! This just goes to show that Islam is a relgion of peace, yo. (Thanks be to durandal for coining that phase. Maybe not the 1st, but the "yo" makes it what it is.)

Nuke them from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2005-01-17 02:25pm

cool, now the vatican is going to send in their secret speicial forces to free him.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2005-01-17 03:03pm

salm wrote:cool, now the vatican is going to send in their secret speicial forces to free him.

I would love to see that...

Send in Neo-Knights Hospitlar.. or the swiss guard...

Falkenhayn · Post by **Falkenhayn** » 2005-01-17 03:06pm

Swiss Guard Death Squads!

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » 2005-01-17 03:07pm

"Oh no ... it's ... The Bishop!"

*Peter Gunn music*

salm · Post by **salm** » 2005-01-17 03:44pm

they are all hot chicks in thight leather suits with guns, like chantal juillerat in the Games Workshop Dark Future series.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-01-17 03:51pm

I'm sure he will be released. Harming a Catholic Archbishop however would certainly hurt the 'religion of peace' brigade.

I hope he gets released promptly.

Admiral_K · Post by **Admiral_K** » 2005-01-17 03:53pm

I wonder if we'll see a rash of attacks on muslim clerics because of this.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2005-01-17 03:59pm

Dudes armed with fighting pikes. You see, the Anla'Shok have infiltrated Earth centuries prior to the Shadow threat, to prepare the human race for the co*SLAP*

Ahem. Sorry, sorry, been playing too much Babylon Project, it went to my head.

Steven Snyder · Post by **Steven Snyder** » 2005-01-17 04:01pm

I have a strong feeling that this guy will not be released alive.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2005-01-17 04:01pm

ALI_G wrote:I'm sure he will be released. Harming a Catholic Archbishop however would certainly hurt the 'religion of peace' brigade.

I hope he gets released promptly.

well, the kidnappers are probably not from the "religion of peace" brigade. they seem more likely to be from the jihad brigade.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » 2005-01-17 04:04pm

Judgling Islam by these chuckleheads is like judging Catholicism by the Provisional IRA .......

Ok, bad example.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2005-01-17 07:22pm

Shut up, dr. what, you fucking commie. Things are going just peachy in Iraq, and you'd better not forget it.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2005-01-17 07:24pm

ALI_G wrote:I'm sure he will be released. Harming a Catholic Archbishop however would certainly hurt the 'religion of peace' brigade.

I hope he gets released promptly.

Just like Margaret Hassan?

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2005-01-17 07:26pm

It's about damn time we got around to using the proper terminology and declared a Crusade, and this seems like the perfect time. I suspect the prospect of freedom from sin would easily solve US military recruitment problems, given the pool of fundies we have to draw on.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2005-01-17 07:29pm

Here's what CNN has to say.

CNN wrote:MOSUL, Iraq (CNN) -- A Catholic archbishop was kidnapped Monday in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, Iraqi officials said.

Basil George Casmoussa, 66, was outside a private residence on a main road in al-Muhendisin, in Mosul, when he was taken captive at 5:30 p.m. (9:30 a.m. ET), said Kahsro Goran, deputy governor of Nineveh province.

Iraqi officials said the kidnappers used two cars.

Casmoussa, an Iraqi, lives in a neighborhood east of Mosul called Qaraqos, Goran said.

Christians are a minority in Iraq, which is 97 percent Muslim. But thousands of Christians live in the Mosul area.

The statement from the Vatican said: "The Holy See deplores in the firmest way such a terrorist act and demands the archbishop be freed immediately."

15 Iraqis killed
Earlier Monday, insurgents killed at least 14 members of the Iraqi security forces and one civilian in attacks on checkpoints in two cities.

Near Baquba, north of Baghdad, insurgents traveling in multiple vehicles killed seven Iraqi army soldiers and one civilian at a checkpoint, Iraqi and U.S. military officials said.

The officials said four other Iraqi soldiers were wounded when they were hit with small-arms fire in the attack in Buhritz, about six miles (10 kilometers) south of Baquba.

At least seven Iraqi police were killed when a suicide car bomb exploded at the first of three checkpoints in front of an Iraqi police headquarters near the north-central city of Tikrit, a U.S. military spokesman and a local official said.

The official with the Tikrit local government said 19 other people were hurt in the explosion at the Beiji police headquarters, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Tikrit.

Two U.S. soldiers killed
Two U.S. soldiers were killed Monday in a gunbattle and suicide car bomb attack in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, the U.S. military said.

The soldiers were part of an Army unit attached to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, according to a Marine Corps statement. Ramadi is the capital of Iraq's sprawling Al Anbar province and a longtime insurgent hotbed.

Guerrillas attacked the troops with guns and rocket-propelled grenades, said 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert, a Marine spokesman.

During the firefight, members of the Army squad moved to stop an approaching taxi, which turned out to be carrying a bomb, Gilbert said.

The blast killed two soldiers and slightly wounded some nearby civilians with shrapnel, Gilbert said. The civilians were treated by U.S. medics.

Monday's deaths brought to 1,367 the number of American troops killed in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

More than two-thirds of those have been killed in guerrilla attacks since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1, 2003.

Water pipeline hit
Elsewhere, insurgents sabotaged a pipeline that supplies 70 percent of Baghdad's water supply, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday.

The spokesman said that the attackers apparently placed the explosives in a manhole Saturday and blew up a section of the pipeline, which is about 100 feet (30 meters) below ground.

Baghdad has reservoirs with enough water for five days, the spokesman said, but some Baghdad residents have complained of water shortages.

On Monday, Iraq's Council of Ministries reported that in the past few days in Falluja, west of Baghdad, clashes between the Iraqi army and insurgents resulted in the deaths of 35 "terrorists."

Sixty-four others were detained and weapons and rockets were confiscated, the council said.

Election preparations
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Monday that the technical preparations for the January 30 Iraq elections are ready.

"Let me say that as far as we are concerned, all the technical preparations are ready," Annan said in New York. "We've done everything we need to do to help the elections go forward. Obviously, the situation is far from ideal."

He said that measures were being taken to ensure security, but they would not be "100 percent proof."

Iraqi expatriates in five U.S. cities and 13 countries began registering Monday for their homeland's first independent election in almost 50 years.

Election officials estimate that about 1 million Iraqis living abroad will be eligible to vote. (Full story)

Polling places hit
Kirkuk's chief of police said a school west of the northern city that was slated to be used as a polling station was damaged by some kind of an explosion early Monday. No casualties were reported, the chief said.

A school in the southern city of Basra that also will be used as a voting site was attacked Sunday night with machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades, a police officer in Basra said.

Despite the precarious security situation across the country, Iraqi and U.S. officials have vowed not to delay the election for a 275-member transitional assembly.

White House spokesman Dan Bartlett, speaking Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition," acknowledged that the "security environment" in Iraq "is tough," but he said that millions of Iraqis who want to vote would be able to do so.

Iraq seems to be getting better by the day. You can smell the progress from here, can't you?

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2005-01-17 07:37pm

Master of Ossus wrote:
Iraq seems to be getting better by the day. You can smell the progress from here, can't you?

Smells like bull shit to me.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-01-18 09:45am

She's been released now - the difference between him and Hassan is that someone was prepared to pay a large ransom to release an Archbishop, whilst an aid worker is not seen as important enough for such a gesture.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-01-18 09:46am

She, of course, should read 'He'.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » 2005-01-18 01:19pm

It's sort of a good-news / bad-news deal ....

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 18 - The 66-year-old Syrian Catholic archbishop snatched from the streets of Mosul on Monday was freed today, without the payment of any ransom, the Vatican said.

Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa, the head of the archdiocese in Mosul, a crime-ridden city in northern Iraq, was walking in front of his church when a group of insurgents pushed him into a car at gunpoint on Monday, several members of Mosul's large Christian population community said.

Pope John Paul II, who had prayed for the archbishop's safe return, was immediately informed of the release, the papal spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, said in a statement.

"Thank God for the happy conclusion," it added.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi interior minister issued a dire forecast today, saying that unless enough people vote in the elections on Jan. 30, there would be a civil war.

"If there are not good elections, we won't have a constitution and there will be chaos and we will have a civil war," Falah Hassan al-Naqib said at a news conference in the heavily fortified Interior Ministry. Gunfire rattled behind him nearly the whole time he spoke.

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