Gunmen kidnapped the head of the Catholic Christian community in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Monday as he was walking in front of his church, a priest said.
The gunmen forced Bishop Gorgis into a car and drove away, the priest said on condition of anonymity. The bishop was walking in front of the Al-Bishara church in Mosul's eastern neighborhood of Muhandeseen when he was abducted.The reason for the kidnapping was unclear, but Christians - tens of thousands of whom live in and around Mosul - have been subjected to attacks in the past.The priest did not have further details.Christians make up just 3 percent of Iraq's 26 million people. The major Christian groups in Iraq include Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians. There are small numbers of Catholics.Officials estimate that as many as 15,000 Iraqi Christians have left the country since August, when four churches in Baghdad and one in Mosul were attacked in a coordinated series of car bombings. The attacks killed 12 people and injured 61 others. Another church was bombed in Baghdad in September.
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