The Times journalists spoke there with Father Thaer Abdal, who said he was worried that the threatened Quran-burning would cause Christians in Iraq to be targeted again after a period of relative calm, and said:  I would like to send a message to the pastor who is in America; he lives in a society that protects humans and religious beliefs. Why would he want to harm Christians in Iraq? This is dangerous. He should realize that we live in cultures of various denominations, especially in Iraq. On Sunday 31 October 2010 at 5pm, at dusk, four men 'in military uniforms' (as a nearby resident described later) got out of a black SUV in front of the Iraq Stock Exchange in Baghdad. Baghdad's security spokesman Al-Moussawi later said that the men had been disguised as guards working for a private security firm and had carried fake IDs, which may have enabled them to approach despite checkpoints in the vicinity. They were wearing suicide vests and fought off security forces at the stock exchange, killing two guards who tried to stop them from raiding the building. In this attack four passersby were also killed. Then three other men arrived in an ordinary car, and all seven men jumped over the wall into the Sayidat al-Nejat ("Our Lady of Salvation") Syriac Catholic church across the road from the Stock Exchange around 6pm during Sunday Mass, armed with machine guns, explosive belts, and grenades. They detonated their ordinary car, clashed with guards and killed some, and burst through the church's huge wooden doors which they closed. While they came in, some 19 people managed to leave the church. Sources gave the number of attackers as six or as 6 to 15. Worshipers, about 100, were herded to the centre of the church by the gunmen, but a priest led another 60 to the sacristy at the back of the church. The gunmen turned the lights off and began shooting around the church and at the congregation, with Rev. Thaer Abdal being killed at the altar. The gunmen "were just youths", said a 26-year-old woman. The gunmen said they were avenging "the burning of the Qur'an and the jailing of Muslim women in Egypt". Meanwhile, they phoned TV station Al-Baghdadia, claimed the attack for Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), demanded the release of al-Qaeda prisoners including women held by the Coptic Church in Egypt and of other al-Qaeda prisoners in Iraq and Egypt, and requested Al-Baghdadia to broadcast that they wanted to negotiate.