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Baghdad church vicar Andrew White leaves for Jerusalem after posting ISIS fears on Facebook

Baghdad church vicar Andrew White leaves for Jerusalem after posting ISIS fears on Facebook
Canon Andrew White, who ran the last Anglican Church in the country, said he was told to leave for his own safety after Islamic State militants got within a couple miles of the Iraqi capital. 'My dear friend the Archbishop of Canterbury has made clear that my profile is so high, I am British and very pro-Israel, which would place me at incredibly high risk,' he wrote.

By Corky Siemaszko
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
http://www.nydailynews.com/
October 6, 2014

Canon Andrew White said he was told to leave for his own safety after Islamic State militants got within a couple miles of the Iraqi capital.

White, who ran the last Anglican Church in the country, is now in Jerusalem and will be working with Palestinian Christians.

"I am not going back to Baghdad now so I will concentrate more of my effort on Gaza and Palestine that is what I feel G-d wants me to do," White wrote on his Facebook page. "I love the Palestinians just as much as I do the Israelis and they so need our help."

In an earlier FB posting, White said the decision to leave Iraq was made by a higher power.

"My dear friend the Archbishop of Canterbury has made clear that my profile is so high, I am British and very pro-Israel, which would place me at incredibly high risk," he wrote.

ISIS has been pushed back from Baghdad, "but who knows what could happen," he added. "This will mean that I will not be able to return to Baghdad yet."

Last week, White, 50, who also heads British-based charity Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, warned that ISIS was breathing down their necks in a panicky posting on Facebook.

Baghdad vicar Andrew White also heads British-based charity Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.

Baghdad vicar Andrew White also heads British-based charity Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.
White said the murderous militants were just two miles away and that "people are very fearful the nation looks as if it has collapsed."

White wrote that when he asked his bodyguard "if he took seriously his role as a soldier to fight and protect his people," the soldier said no.

"He told me he just did it because he needed the money," the canon confided.

Pentagon officials said the Iraqi Army and ISIS had been fighting for weeks on the outskirts of the sprawling city. They said Baghdad itself remains in government hands.

But White's SOS essentially put an even bigger target on his back and Archbishop Justin Welby decided it was too hot for him to stay in Baghdad.

END

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