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Boulos told CT some Sunni Muslim preachers are telling their followers not to buy homes that Christians are selling, because "soon they will leave them to us for free."

The Baghdad businessman, during my interview, repeated an oft-used phrase: "Sunday comes after Saturday." To Iraqi Christians, it means they may face the same fate as the 100,000 Iraqi Jews forced out of the country in 1951.

Iraq's top Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has condemned the assaults on churches as "hideous crimes." But few if any Muslim leaders have criticized the killings of Christians who work for the U.S. military or sell alcoholic beverages in Iraq.

Militant Muslims are not targeting just Christians. Iraqi Mandaeans (an ancient sect that reveres John the Baptist) argue that their plight is also precarious because Muslims do not put Mandaeans on a par with Jews and Christians as "People of the Book" (the Bible). Mandaeans, who have historic ties to Judaism, estimate their community numbers around 15,000 people.

Militants target Mandaeans with few consequences. "They normally focus on kidnapping Mandaean girls," said 23-year-old Shayma, herself a victim of abduction and rape in Baghdad last May. Shayma, a Baghdad Mandaean, said gunmen abducted her on May 24 last year as she walked to the grocery store in her Zayoona neighborhood. They took her to a rural area where they repeatedly raped and tortured her for eight days. The kidnappers demanded that her family pay a ransom of $10,000 for her release.

"When they tortured me, they shouted, 'You are infidels! Your lives, belongings, and possessions are all permitted for us to take,'" Shayma said weeping.

"I felt like my life was over," she said. "I would stay awake wondering if I would ever see my family again in this life." Although her father paid the ransom, her abductors continued to torment her. When she was released, they told her, "We will come again to kill your brothers and blow up your house." She and her family fled in fear to Jordan and hope to win religious asylum in Australia.

In stark contrast, several Christian congregations in Iraq are growing, especially ones that worship in buildings without traditional steeples and crosses.

One new fellowship has outgrown its meeting place in Baghdad and aspires to plant a satellite ministry in a nearby suburb. Some Pentecostal Christians report five-fold church growth, topping several hundred new worshipers since the end of the war. An Iraqi Christian family returned to Baghdad from Jordan six months ago to start a Bible study with women from a Catholic church that was targeted in the August bombings.

Most Iraqi Christians believe their concerns are overlooked in the global war against terror. A Baghdad native named Barbara, now approaching 70, asked during my interview, "Is there any country that will provide sanctuary to the Iraqi Christians?

"It seems like Christians in the West have forgotten the Christians in Iraq. It's necessary for them to help us. We don't want financial aid. We want them to save our lives." Last year, Iraqi leaders approved an interim constitution, including article 53D, which recognizes Chaldo-Assyrian Christians and guarantees creation of a region that Chaldo-Assyrians would govern themselves. In late November, 11 humanitarian groups appealed to the interim government to implement article 53D for creation of an autonomous safe haven north of Mosul in an area known as the Nineveh Plain.

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April 2005, Vol. 49, No. 4