Iraqi Catholics' Muslim Protector

Extremely interesting post over at Against the Grain on the Vatican and the Anbar Awakening. Essentially, an Iraqi sheikh, Ahmed Abu Risha, brother of the leader of the Anwar uprising, has pledged himself to protect Chaldean Catholics, and has exchanged letters with the Pope on the topic.

After hearing Sheikh Iyad's account of the suffering that the Chaldean Catholics have endured in Iraq, Sheikh Ahmad publicly declared that from this time forward they would be under his protection, that anyone who killed a Chaldean will be regarded as one who has killed in a member of his tribe (under the medieval Islamic concept of qisas this is a capital offense), and money will be provided from the Sahawa al-Iraq treasury to rebuild the churches and cemeteries that al-Qaeda destroyed. He justified this by quoting from the Qu'ran and stating that there should be no compulsion in matters of religion because truth stands free from error.