by Michel Sailhan
BAGHDAD, Aug 2 (AFP) - Christians across Baghdad on Monday blamed foreigners for a string of bombings outside churches that killed at least 10 people, ruling out the possibility that the attacks were orchestrated by fellow Iraqis.
Muslim residents in Baghdad's southern Doura district poured into Saint Peter and Paul on Monday morning to offer their condolences to Father Faris Toma, a day after a car bomb at the entrance of the church wreaked havoc amidst the faithful leaving evening mass.
"I think the horror of what happened yesterday will stay in people's minds for a very long time," said Toma, the church's pastor who comes for Iraq's northern-most Kurdish town of Zakho.
"They started with liquor stores and now churches."
Toma blamed extremists from neighbouring countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Siba Yussif, a guard at the church, said Muslim residents in the area were the first to rush to help remove the victims from under burning vehicles.
Father Toma's church was hardest hit in the coordinated string of attacks on Christian houses of worship in Baghdad and Mosul that killed at least 10 and wounded around 50.
Six parishioners from Toma's church were listed as dead according to a Baghdad hospital, but the pastor said he feared the death toll could be as high as 10 as some of the bodies were severely mutilated by the blast.
The remains of a dozen cars littered the church's courtyard.
Sister Margaret Shamoun from the nearby Sacred Heart convent said she was filled with anguish and anger at the sight of destruction.
"They want the Christians out of Iraq, we have to do something, we have to protect ourselves even if we have to arm ourselves and go against Christ's message of peace" she said raising her hands to the sky.
She blamed fundamentalist Muslims whom she branded as the "enemies of Islam."
Members of Iraq's minority Christian community have largely kept a low profile so far despite a recent wave of attacks on liquor stores and night clubs in Baghdad's Karrada district that are mostly owned by them.
"The group is probably supported by Iranians. We must strike these people very hard, because people in Iraq are used to being afraid and if you don't strike hard, you'll get nowhere," said Magdessi, 53, the owner of an off licence in Al-Wahda district. He refused to give his full name.
At a nearby Christian hospital, Doctor Sabah Nuri, a Muslim, expressed his indignation at the attacks.
"We are facing a new religion. This is not true Islam," he said referring to the Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.
Both the Iraqi government and the US military have blamed many recent car bombings and attacks on alleged Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi and his network inside Iraq.
The blame has also been laid on foreign fighters from neighbouring countries.