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| The UN headquarters building in Baghdad after the Canal Hotel bombing, on 22 August 2003 (Wikipedia) |
ISIS on Christians: 'There is nothing to give them but the sword'
Catholic Online, August 8, 2014 (Warning: This page contains graphic images!)The Islamic State has warned Christians, possibly for the last time, saying "there is nothing to give them but the sword." Across Northern Iraq, Christians are huddled in refugee camps, trapped in the desert, or trapped in their homes, waiting for death.
"Our people are disappearing," Canon Andrew White, head of the Anglican Church in Iraq "It looks as though the end could be very near," he told the BBC.
A week ago, Christians were warned to either leave the city of Mosul and other areas under Islamic State control, or they would have to pay a tax or be put to death. Today, nobody has heard from those Christians and nobody knows what is happening to them.
Are they being quietly "put to the sword" as this militant strain of Islam asks they be?
The Human Rights Watch reported on July 14 that homes in Mosul were painted with red letters to indicate Christian homes. Other homes of Shiite Muslims were also adorned.
Emboldened ISIS Barbarically Slaughtering Christians In Iraq as Obama Plays Golf
BY RACHEL ALEXANDER , CP OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR, Christian Post. August 11, 2014The Christian genocide taking place in the Middle East currently has reached alarming levels. Last week, the jihadist terrorist group ISIS, which means the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – although it is unrecognized as a nation – took over Qaraqosh, the largest Christian town in Iraq, warning Christians to "leave, convert or die." They are systematically beheading children. It is a part of an unprecedented, recent effort by the ISIS to extinguish Christians from northern Iraq. In 2003, there were about 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. After the Iraq War, that number dropped to as low as 200,000.
ISIS captured Mosul in June, so Christians there fled to Qaraqosh, population 50,000. ISIS warned Christians in Mosul to leave by July 19th. The houses of Christians in Mosul were painted with the letter "N," meaning Nasare, the Muslim word for Christians, which comes from Nazareth, Jesus's hometown. Their property was confiscated, including jewelry and wedding rings – sometimes chopping off their fingers to get them. Their churches were bombed, which has been caught on video. Catholic Online has compiled some of the more graphic photos of the barbaric, torturous executions. Many Christians were crucified due to the humiliation of Christ's crucifixion. There are reportedly no Christians left in Mosul.
Within the past few months, ISIS has taken over Fallujah, Tikrit, and Tel Afar in northern Iraq. Composed of radical Sunni Muslims, ISIS is also terrorizing Shia and some Kurdish Muslims. Besides eradicating Christians, its goals include removing the Shia Muslim population. Next, it is going after certain Kurdish Muslims, marching toward Erbil, the Kurdish capital of Iraq.
ISIS Swallowing Iraq: 'They're Beheading Children'
Chris Mitchell, CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief, CBN, August 14, 2014ERBIL, Kurdistan -- Islamic terrorists in Iraq are beheading children and burying people alive, and it won't stop there....
Over the past week, the army of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), also known as IS (Islamic State), swallowed up swaths of Iraq like a pervading darkness.
In just one day, tens of thousands of Christians fled from towns like Qaraqosh and Bartilla, about 25 miles away. Most came to the town of Erbil with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.
"America is at a crossroad," says Retired Gen. Paul Vallely, who has more than 15 years of experiencce in special operations and other military ops. He shared his insight on the chaos in Iraq and how it will impact America, on The 700 Club, August 11.
"They take everything from the house, from the store, everything," one refugee told CBN News. "They hate Christian especially. We don't know why."
The choice was leave or die.
"They say if anyone don't [sic] become like Muslim, we['re] going to kill them, each one, from baby to women to old man," he said. "We don't have anything here," one woman told CBN News.
"They bombed the churches and already took our houses," she continued. "We have nothing here. No money. No ID. No travel documents."
Dr. Sarah Ahmed, with the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, called the attacks "a genocide."
"What's happening now to the Christians, to the Yazidis, to the minorities is -- in the last couple of days mostly to the Christians -- is a genocide," she told CBN News. "What's happening is what happened 200 years ago to the Jews [sic]."
The Yazidis follow an ancient religion with ties to Zoroastrianism.
Dr. Ahmed relayed stories she'd heard of the barbarism of ISIS.
"That ISIS was shooting the kids and people, and they were laying them on the ground and they bring tractors that they walk [drive] over them in front of their families," she said. "They take women out of their houses so if a family had three daughters, they would take one."
UN Accuses ISIS Militants of 'Barbaric' Sexual Violence; Says Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq Has Reached Its Highest Level
STOYAN ZAIMOV , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER, Christian Post, August 14, 2014The United Nations has declared the highest level of humanitarian emergency in Iraq and has accused Islamic State militants of carrying out "barbaric" acts of sexual violence against women and teenage boys and girls belonging to Iraqi minorities.
U.N. special representative Nickolay Mladenov said that the declaration by the UN of a "Level 3 Emergency" in Iraq would "facilitate mobilization of additional resources in goods, funds and assets to ensure a more effective response to the humanitarian needs of populations affected by forced displacements," BBC News reported on Thursday.
The Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS, has taken over significant territory in Iraq and Syria, capturing major cities, carrying out violent attacks on minorities, including Christians, and forcing close to 1.2 million people to flee their homes.
Militants have been accused by humanitarian organizations of violent acts such as beheading children and carrying out "savage rapes."
"We are gravely concerned by continued reports of acts of violence, including sexual violence against women and teenage girls and boys belonging to Iraqi minorities," Mladenov and Zainab Hawa Bangura, the special representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, said in a joint statement.
"Atrocious accounts of abduction and detention of Yazidi, Christian, as well as Turkomen and Shabak women, girls and boys, and reports of savage rapes, are reaching us in an alarming manner."
Bangura and Mladenov added that close to 1,500 Yazidi and Christian persons may have been forced into sexual slavery.
The U.N. officials strongly condemned the targeting of women and children, identifying such acts of sexual violence as "grave human rights violations" that can be considered war crimes and crimes against humanity.
"And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language,`Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.' So I said,`Who are You, Lord?' And He said,`I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. (Act 26:14-15)
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The Sunni-Shia Conflict in Iraq
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