Minorities feel threatened by disputed oil deals
Christians, Yezidis and other minority groups say the KRG-Baghdad fight over oil contracts ignores their pleas for assistance, self-determination.
Iraqi Kurds sit with the yellow Kurdish flag on top of a defaced portrait of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in territory newly acquired by Kurds and U.S forces after Iraqi government forces were driven out of the village of Haware south west of Arbil, northern Iraq, April 6, 2003. (CAREN FIROUZ/Reuters)
HAMDANIYA - Security was tight as hundreds of worshipers gathered for the opening and dedication of a new reception hall at the Sarah and Behnam Church, in this Assyrian Christian capital in northern Iraq's Ninewa plains.
Iraqi police manned checkpoints on the main road; men in camouflage and flak jackets patrolled the church grounds, toting machine gun magazines painted with the Kurdish flag; and plainclothes guards paced inside the church's new community hall, casually gripping worn AK-47's with one hand.
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