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Iraq's Christian Minority Feels Militant Threat

(Wall Street Journal) Maria Abi-Habib - The ranks of Iraq's Christian community have shrunk by half in the past decade, as they flee sectarian violence. At the Syriac Catholic Our Lady of Salvation Church in downtown Baghdad, a 35-year-old armed guard said that the country's largest religious communities - Sunni Muslims and Shiites - have often been too busy fighting each other to hunt Christians, but as Sunni militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, sweep through the country, it is different this time. "Now all these terrorists are here from across the Middle East, and they want to cleanse the Christians," he said. "The youth have left. There's no one left to defend the church, and if I had the chance, I'd leave, too."
2014-06-27 00:00:00
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