By Xinhua,
Baghdad : The United States on Tuesday condemned attacks against the Iraqi people, including Christians, amid spate of recent attacks on the Christian minority that forced Christians out of the northern ethnically mixed city of Mosul.
In a statement, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad said that it “condemned the recent attacks against Iraqis in the cities of Baghdad and Nineveh, including those attacks on the Christian community.”
According to media reports that about a dozen Christians have been killed in the recent few weeks in Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, provoked about 1,000 Christian families to flee their homes and take shelter in the northern and eastern fringes of the Sunni-dominated province of Nineveh.
On Sunday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered an investigation into the latest wave of attacks against the minority in Mosul and vowed to protect the threatened people.
“We will take all the necessary actions to resolve the problems and difficulties that face the Christians in Mosul,” Maliki said in a statement issued by his office.
Moreover, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said also on Sunday that the government has dispatched two brigades of security forces to protect the restive Christian areas in the city.
A eyewitness in the city told Xinhua that police forces have set up checkpoints near churches and policemen could be seen patrolling on the main streets of the Christian neighborhoods in Mosul.
Nineveh province, together with its capital Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, is said to be one of the last strongholds of al-Qaida fighters in the war-torn country.
The province has been the scene of a major security crackdown carried out by U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces, aimed at uprooting al-Qaida militants and other anti-U.S. insurgent groups.