BOMBS EXPLODED OUTSIDE 4 CHURCHES ACROSS BAGHDAD

Bombs have exploded outside four churches across Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, killing at least four people and wounding 28 others, police have said.
A car bomb placed outside a church on Palestine Street in the east of the city on Sunday killed four people and injured 21 others.
Three bombs placed in cardboard boxes went off earlier near the gates of churches in the Ghadir and Karrada districts of central and eastern Baghdad.

• Christians, believed to number around 750,000, have been sporadically targeted for attacks, particularly in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul, leading many of them to flee abroad.
• In the northern city of Kirkuk on Sunday, armed men assassinated Aziz Rizqo Nisan, the head of the provincial audit department - a Christian in a city divided along ethnic and sectarian lines.
• Although violence has fallen significantly from a peak following the US-led invasion in 2003, there has been an increase in attacks as US combat troops have pulled out of the centre of towns and centres.
• Two explosions outside a billiard hall in Baghdad on Saturday killed at least one person and wounded at least 20 others and a roadside bomb in the Saydiya district killed a junior cabinet official.
• Despite the violence, a senior US military official said on Sunday that there had been calls for help with urban combat since the withdrawal on June 30.

Courtesy: Al Jazeera