The assault ended a several-hours-long hostage drama, which began when armed terrorists in suicide bomb vests rushed into the Our Lady of Deliverance (Sayidat al-Nejat) Catholic church in Baghdad’s Karrada neighborhood, during Sunday evening services.
The attackers shot one of the two priests as soon as they entered, and threatened to kill the rest if insurgents held in Egypt were not released.
The terrorists first tried to enter the Iraqi stock exchange building, but were driven off by security forces. The attackers fled to the church during Mass.
"As we went outside the hall to see what was happening, gunmen stormed the main gate and they started to shoot at us, “parishioner Marzina Matti Yalda told the Wall Street Journal. “Many people fell down, including a priest, while some of us ran inside and took shelter in a locked room. We were packed together as we waited for the security forces to arrive."
Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, the deputy interior minister, said 52 people were killed and 67 wounded, according to AP. Reports differ about the number of attackers. Some say 10 terrorists were involved, and eight were arrested. At least one detonated his explosive vest when police tried to enter the church.
Cause for Attack Unclear
A website allegedly run by the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq posted a statement Sunday stating that “it would "exterminate Iraqi Christians" if Muslim women in Egypt were not freed, AP reports. The site mentioned specifically two women, wives of Egyptian Coptic Christian priests, who converted to Islam in order to divorce their husbands, divorce being forbidden in the Coptic Church.
U.S. army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Bloom told Al Jazeera that about 100 hostages had been in the church when the attackers came in, but some 19 of them managed to escape. He called the incident a failed robbery attempt.
"We've seen them resort to robbery to get financed. It has been very challenging for them to get outside financing, so they are resorting to small, petty crimes to try to finance themselves."
Al-Baghdadiya television station said it had received a phone call from someone claiming to be one of the attackers, who demanded the release of all al-Qaeda prisoners in Iraq and Egypt, according to Al Jazeera.
