AINA -- The best thing the church worldwide can do for Iraq's beleaguered Christians is support a push for a secure province for the community. A province in the north of the country -- the original homeland of Assyrians is a rural area near Mosul known as the Nineveh plain -- would provide the protection needed to persuade those many Christians who have left Iraq to return home, said Ken Joseph.
Joseph, an ethnic Assyrian, commented after the body of an archbishop was found in Mosul on Thursday, less than two weeks after gunmen abducted him at his church and killed three men with him. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blamed al-Qaeda and said his government was committed to protecting Christians.
Paulos Faraj Rahho, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, is the most senior Iraqi Christian to have been killed in what many believe is a concerted effort by Islamic extremists to drive Christians, a mere three percent of the population, from the country.
Iraqi Christians are being targeted by jihadists who "seek to drive them from their ancestral homes and create a pure Islamic caliphate," said Faith McConnell, director of the Institute on Religion and Democracy's religious liberty programs.
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