"All Christian centres, organisations and institutions, leaders and followers, are legitimate targets for the mujahedeen (holy warriors) wherever they can reach them," said a statement by the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), the local branch of Osama bin Laden's jihadist network.

The group had already said its gunmen were behind a hostage-taking at a Baghdad cathedral on Sunday that ended in the deaths of 46 worshippers, including two priests.

Baghdad's Chaldean bishop, Shlimoune Wardouni, said the threat "is very negative; it is very bad for our people (Christians)."

"They could be harmed. It could also force them to leave the country," said Wardouni. "But we must be strong, and ready for everything."

Security was reinforced around Baghdad churches, with more policemen and armoured Humvees stationed outside two churches in Karrada, the same district where the hostage drama had unfolded.

But Christians have not been the only targets in Baghdad in recent days.

On Tuesday night, about a dozen coordinated bombings targeted Shiite districts across the capital, and Health Minister Saleh al-Hasnawi said 64 people were killed and 360 wounded.

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari called the attack on the church a "barbaric act."

And he blamed Tuesday's violence on the continuing failure of Iraq's politicians to form a government after inconclusive March 7 elections.

"The attacks and explosions yesterday are due to the constitutional and political vacuum and the delay in the formation of the government, which gave the terrorists the opportunity to attack civilians," he said.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for Tuesday's carnage, but the bombings bore the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda, whose militants have been waging a war against US forces and Iraq's weak government.

ISI said in a statement posted on the Internet that its threat to target Christians was justified by the refusal of Egypt's Coptic church to clarify the status of women claimed to be held captive in Egyptian monasteries, US monitoring group SITE reported.

It also demanded that Christians "show to the mujahedeen their seriousness to pressure this belligerent church to release the captive women from the prisons of their monasteries."

Camilia Shehata and Wafa Constantine are the wives of Coptic priests in Egypt whom Islamists have said were forcibly detained by the Coptic Church after they had willingly converted to Islam.

The church has denied that either woman had become Muslim.

Saad Sirap Hanna, the 40-year-old priest at Saint Joseph church who was kidnapped by Islamists and held for a month in 2006, asked "what is the relation between us and the Copts of Egypt except that we are Christians and an easy prey, because we have neither a militia nor anyone to protect us?"

"It is not one or two more Humvees that changes anything," Hanna said about the beefed-up security outside his church. "One needs a true national reconciliation and a government that ensures safety, not in word but in deed."

Hazen Girgis, professor at Mosul University, acknowledged being nervous.

"We are scared as Christians because of the campaign targeting our people," said Girgis, 45.

"All this is because of the delay in forming a government and not enforcing the law," he said.

But Christian MP Unadem Kana shrugged off the latest Al-Qaeda threat, saying "everyone is a target for Al-Qaeda. This communique is not something new."

Before the US-led invasion of 2003, around 800,000 Christians lived in Iraq but that number has since shrunk to around a half-million in the face of repeated attacks against the community and its places of worship.

Since the invasion, Baghdad's Christians have dwindled to 150,000, a third of their former population. The 14 Chaldean churches still in use are half the number that existed seven years ago.

On Wednesday the acting parliament speaker announced that the house would convene on Monday to elect a new speaker and two deputies, the first steps in forming a government.

Violence in Iraq has fallen dramatically since sectarian bloodshed peaked in 2006 to 2007 but attacks are still common in Baghdad and the main northern city of Mosul.

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