Iraqi Christians mark Christmas amid security concern

Iraqi Christians marked Sunday Christmas amid fears of increasing deterioration in security and tension generated by political row shortly after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country. Hundreds of Christian worshippers have gathered at a church in the Iraqi capital Baghdad's central district of Karradah to commemorate Christmas, as Iraqi security forces stood guard outside the church to protect the worshippers. "I want to say to all my people in Iraq that God calls us to the wisdom and to follow the right path through resorting to dialogue to resolve our problems," Sami Hadad, 54, a worshipper in the church told Xinhua. Hadad said that after the departure of U.S. troops from the country, Iraqis must find their way out of the sectarian conflict, as "our country is going through a sensitive circumstance that entails us to fold the page of the past and reconcile with each other to achieve peace." "Christians in Iraq are partners with their Muslim brothers in humanity and citizenship," Hadad said as he left the church in his car with his wife and two sons. Muna Alfred, a housewife in her 30s, complained the lack of security in Baghdad after the latest wave of bomb attacks that killed and injured hundreds of innocent people from all sects and religions. "We can't guarantee our lives, and the government seems incapable of providing better security situation after the U.S. pullout," Alfred said. She is aware that the Christian minority in Iraq is becoming smaller and smaller during the past years, as by some estimates their numbers have been halved since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. "I don't blame those Christians who left Iraq. This is very personal decision," Alfred said, adding that for herself, she will not leave the country that her ancestors lived in for centuries. The Christian minority have suffered from the murder of hundreds of its members due to chaos and insecurity that engulfed Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Most of the around one-million Iraqi Christian minority live in areas from Baghdad to northern cities of the country, including Kirkuk and Mosul. On Thursday, a series of bomb attacks ripped across the Iraqi capital, killing some 63 people and wounding 185. The attacks were seen as the first major indication of violence escalation in the country after the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops earlier this month. The attacks came amid a political row between Maliki and his political rivals in the Sunni-backed bloc of Iraqia, as Maliki sought to arrest the Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi on terror charges. In addition, Maliki asked the parliament to sack his Sunni deputy Salih al-Mutlak after the latter dubbed Maliki "a dictator" in an interview with U.S. news channel CNN and on another occasion told his own satellite TV channel of Babiliyah that "Maliki is worse than Saddam Hussein." Enditem