Church leader says outlaws responsible for displacement.

Byline: SS (S)/SR

DUHUK / Aswat al-Iraq: The head of the Assyrian Church of the East, Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV, accused a group of outlaws of being behind the recent wave of violence and the displacement of Christians in Iraq.

During his visit to the northern Iraqi province of Duhuk, the patriarch said in a press conference attended by Aswat al-Iraq that the killings and acts of displacement that targeted Christians in Mosul city throughout the current month were committed by "an outlawed group that does not want us to live in peace with Muslims."

Several Christian families have fled Mosul throughout the past days, while Iraqi security sources said that a few Christians were killed in separate incidents in the city, signaling an increase in the wave of attacks against religious communities in the northern volatile city.

Mosul, the capital city of Ninewa, lies 405 km north of Baghdad.

Also spelled Duhok, Dohuk Dehok or Dahok; it is a city in the far northern part of Iraq to the borders with Turkey. It has about 500,000 inhabitants, mostly consisting of Kurds and Assyrians.

According to some sources, the name "Duhuk" comes from Kurmanji Kurdish meaning "small village".

Circled by mountains along the Tigris river, Duhuk, the third province with Iraq's Kurdistan region, has a growing tourist industry.

Its population grew greatly since the 1990s as the rural population moved to the cities. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States, Duhuk and Iraqi Kurdistan in general have remained the only safe places for foreigners.

Copyright 2008 Aswat al-Iraq

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