Source: Yahoo! News
Wire Service: AP
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040802/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq&cid=540&ncid=716
On August 2, 2004 the Associated Press reported, "Masked gunmen killed a Turkish hostage with three gunshots to the head, according to a video posted on the Internet, and the Turkish truckers' union said Monday it would stop bringing supplies to U.S. forces in Iraq, bowing to militant demands in hopes of saving two other captive Turks. Also Monday, Iraq's top Shiite Muslim cleric condemned as 'hideous crimes' the coordinated bomb attacks on five churches in Baghdad and Mosul that killed at least seven people and marked the insurgency's first major attacks on Iraq's minority Christians. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani said in a statement that Sunday's assaults on churches 'targeted Iraq's unity, stability and independence.' The unprecedented attacks against Iraq's 750,000-member Christian community appeared to confirm Christians' fears of being targeted as suspected collaborators with American forces amid a rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism...The church bombings signaled a change in tactics for insurgents, who have focused previous attacks on U.S. forces, Iraqi officials and police, and foreign workers. The murder of the Turkish hostage was the latest bloodshed in an insurgent campaign aimed at forcing coalition forces out of Iraq and scaring foreign companies from operating here."