BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The head of Iraq's largest church said on Sunday that Islamic State militants who drove Christians out of Mosul were worse than Mongol leader Genghis Khan and his grandson Hulagu who ransacked medieval Baghdad.

Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako led a wave of condemnation for the Sunni Islamists who demanded Christians either convert, submit to their radical rule and pay a religious levy or face death by the sword.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis decried what he said was the persecution of Christians in the birthplace of their faith, while U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the Islamic State's actions could constitute a crime against humanity.

Hundreds of Christian families left Mosul ahead of Saturday's ultimatum, many of them stripped of their possessions as they fled for safety. They formed the remnants of a community which once numbered in the tens of thousands and traced its presence in Mosul to the earliest years of Christianity.

People of other faiths in the once diverse city, including Shi'ites, Yazidis and Shabaks, have also fled from the ultra-conservative militants, who have blown up mosques and shrines and seized property of fleeing minorities.

"The heinous crime of the Islamic State was carried out not just against Christians, but against humanity," Sako told a special church service in east Baghdad where around 200 Muslims joined Christians in solidarity.

"How in the 21st century could people be forced from their houses just because they are Christian, or Shi'ite or Sunni or Yazidi?" he asked. "Christian families have been expelled from their houses and their valuables were stolen and ...their houses and property expropriated in the name of the Islamic State."

"This has never happened in Christian or Islamic history. Even Genghis Khan or Hulagu didn't do this," he said. Hulagu Khan led a Mongol army which sacked Baghdad in 1258, killing tens of thousand of people, destroying a caliphate which lasted nearly 600 years and leaving the city in ruins for centuries.

"WORLD MUST ACT" <<<<With this, I disagree. Let them figure it out.

Muslims at the service held up leaflets declaring "I am Iraqi, I am Christian", some writing it on their shirts.

Others marked themselves with an "N", the first letter of the Arabic word for Christian, "Nasrani" or Nazarene. The Islamic State has been putting an "N" on Christian property marked out for seizure.

One of Zako's deputies, Bishop Shlemon Wardooni, called for an international response. "The world must act, speak out, consider human rights," he said, adding that the Iraqi state was weak and divided and Muslim leaders had remained silent.

"We haven't heard from clerics from all sects or from the government," he told Reuters on Sunday. "The Christians are sacrificed for Iraq."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki condemned the treatment of the Christians and what he described as attacks on churches in Mosul, saying it showed "the extreme criminality and terrorist nature of this group".

He said he instructed a government committee set up to support displaced people across Iraq to help the Christians who had been made homeless, but did not say when the army might try to win back control of Mosul.

Iraq's security forces, which wilted under the weight of last month's Islamic State-led offensive, have been reinforced by Shi'ite militia fighters and are trying to push back the Sunni militants further south. So far they have failed to take back significant territory from the insurgents.

Pope Francis said he was troubled by the Islamic State ultimatum in his weekly public prayers on Sunday. The Chaldeans are Eastern Rite Catholics in communion with Rome.

"I learned with great concern the news that came from the Christian communities in Mosul and other parts of the Middle East, where they have lived since the birth of Christianity and where they have made significant contributions to the good of their societies," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-catholic-leader-says-islamic-state-worse-genghis-194238082.html

ITS A SHAME WHAT PEOPLE DO TO EACH OTHER IN THE NAME OF THERE ANGRY GOD--WASTED LIVES AND TERRIBLE PAIN THEY PUT EACH OTHER THRU AND THEN PASS IT ON TO NEXT GENERATION AFTER GENERATION---I BELIEVE LIFE WAS NOT MENT TO BE THIS WAY IN THE FIRST PLACE-----MAN MAKES HELL ON EARTH AND TRIES TO JUSTIFIES IT---THE SAD PART IS EVERYONE PLAYS A PART DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY----

well,we need more Idiots here in the West crowing how peaceful Islam really is!
We see the evidence of it all over the Mid-East and Asia!

The extremist Sunni (Wahabi) militants that now control Iraq's second city of Mosul gave its Christian residents an ultimatum last weekend: pay a protection tax, convert to Islam, or be killed. The few hundred families still remaining in the area fled.
''Before the deadline ultimatum, ISIS had begun painting Christian houses with the letter N for Nassarah (Christian)" said Bishop Mar Shlemon Warduni, a senior cleric at the Chaldean Catholic Church, Iraq's largest Christian segment, he added that when Christians tried to leave Mosul, ISIS robbed them of all of their possessions.
Most of Mosul's Christians had already left, bolting when the ISIS overran the city. The fighters were led by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now known simply as Islamic State.

religion and nationalism are great tools for people (terrorists included) to use to indoctrincate and control

but these are humans hurting humans

these same people are also terrorizing people of their OWN religion,,,


it is the character of these humans and not their religion that is to be responsible for their action,,

Don't see no moderate mooslims openly condemning their radical kin.

'cause,it might get them a Haircut all the way down to their Necks!

true

ISIS burns 1,800-year-old church in Mosul

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD46LtnkMh8
ISIS destroyed the graves of Christians in Mosul – Iraq

Or maybe in their hearts ... it isn't such a bad thing.

What a man does and thinks is who he is - regilion is part of the thinking ergo responsible for what they do. You cannot separate the two. Daaaah

As you sow so shall you reap, we are pretty gud at blaming the current situations. Root cause for any problem shall be sought and rectified..

What be the root of the problem?

Wahhabism!
And it will come home to roost one day!

Ya know? Come to think of it, a multitude of women in the states could use lessons on covering up, tightened morals and obeying men.

Islam offers all that.

US invasion on Iraq