Church and civic leaders in Iraq are expressing concern after reports that a number of churches were bombed on Sunday 6 January 2007, following Eid and Christmas, and at a time when Orthodox Christians were celebrating New Year’s Eve.

Christians are fleeing Iraq and Christianity risks disappearing from the country, says a senior Baghdad archbishop, reiterating appeals made recently to Western churches to intercede with their governments about the Iraqis' plight.

A Baghdad-based British Anglican priest has told a US news network that Christians are considerably worse off now than they were during the regime of the late Saddam Hussein, Iraq's former dictator, whose deposition he welcomed.

As the humanitarian and military crisis continues in Iraq, European Catholic bishops have issued an appeal to governments to permit more refugees from the country to live in the region - against the backdrop of growing refusals.

Dr Rowan Williams has found himself at the centre of a row, following remarks to a Muslim magazine, after a Sunday newspaper construed it as an all-out attack on the US and neocon hard-liner John Bolton attacked him on the BBC.

The United States and its leaders must work together across party political divides to bring about a responsible transition in Iraq that ends the war at the earliest opportunity and minimizes the loss of lives, American and Iraqi.

On the eve of Remembrance Sunday, Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams described the Western-backed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a tragic mess which failed to conform to the principles of 'just war' theory and brought great suffering.

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