In similar attacks in July, a wave of six simultaneous bombings of churches killed five people and injured scores more. Christian government officials have also been singled out. Last year, Paulos Faraj Rahho, the Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul, was kidnapped after his bodyguards and driver were shot dead. His own body was found in a shallow grave two weeks later. The threats, though, came not just from violence motivated by religion. Ordinary Christian families, who did well in Saddam Hussein's Iraq as doctors, teachers and academics, were also uniquely vulnerable to Iraq's post-war criminal gangs. As middle-class professionals, they were attractive targets for kidnappers – and because they lack the tribal structures of Iraq's Muslim communities, they were less able to organise street militias to deter such attacks in the first place.