(Independent UK) – Seven Christians, were killed almost instantly, when their vehicle was sprayed with gunfire. Two others were injured but survived. The dead were all breadwinners for their families in the close-knit Christian community in the suburb of al-Doura. The murders were the latest deadly attack against Iraq’s Christians, a systematic and brutal campaign by Islamic extremists which began soon after the “liberation” by the United States and Britain. So far, 110 have been killed. In August, four churches in Baghdad and one in Mosul were blown up in a coordinated series of car bombings, killing 12 people and injuring 61 others. The result had been a flow of Christians out of the country, with a marked acceleration in the past few months. About 45,000 have gone so far out of a community estimated to be between 600,000 and 700,000. Christians say they receive scant protection from the US and British military in the face of the onslaught. Some of the early killings, mainly of shopkeepers, happened in the supposedly safer, British-run south of the country.

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