22 killed in Iraq church seizure: Report

LONDON/WASHINGTON - At least 10 hostages and 12 others were killed Sunday night after Iraqi forces stormed a Christian church where militants had taken dozens of people hostage, according to a newspaper report.

London’s Guardian newspaper, whose reporter was on the scene of the hostage seizure, also wrote that 30 hostages had been injured.

Seven Iraqi police officers and soldiers died in the raid, the Guardian reported.

Five of the militant hostage-takers, identified by Iraqi officials as members of the Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, were earlier confirmed killed by Iraq’s Defence Minister Abdul-Qadir Mohammed Al-Obeidi.

But Al-Obeidi would not specify the number of hostages killed, saying only that “a limited number of victims fell” when militants entered the church and some explosive devices went off.

CNN news quoted a US military spokesman as saying up to 10 hostages had been killed.