Mideast Christians Victims of 'Cleansing': Sarkozy
PARIS -- French president Nicolas Sarkozy said on Friday that Christian minorities in the Middle East are victims of "religious cleansing", following deadly attacks on churches in the region. A series of attacks against Christians "looks more and more... like a particularly wicked programme of cleansing in the Middle East, religious cleansing," Sarkozy said in an annual New Year's address to religious leaders. A deadly attack on a Coptic church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria on January 1 killed 21 people. An al-Qaida-linked website had published threats against that church and other Coptic communities in various countries. Forty-four worshippers and two priests died in an attack on a Syriac Catholic church in Baghdad in October, the worst of a series of attacks against Christians in Iraq.