Islamic terrorist group ISIS is attempting to eliminate any Christian that speaks the ancient language Aramaic in an attempt to wipe out the language that was spoken by Christ.
The Associated Press reported that thousands of Christians in Syria have fled their homes in Syria because of the terrorists but that ISIS has placed a bounty on them. These Assyrians are so valued by ISIS that kidnapped Assyrians are being held for $100,000 each.
“Assyrians remain the last Aramaic-speaking people of the world. So the disappearance and displacement of these people pretty much spells the closing chapter of Aramaic use in the world,” Middle East historian Eden Naby told the AP.
Pockets of Assyrian communities existed in Turkey and Lebanon, but the majority of the Aramaic speaking Assyrians lived in Syria and Iraq. The communities belong to Eastern Rite churches that we’re founded by the apostles Thomas, Thaddeus and Bartholomew.
The community of Assyrians has fallen from 1.4 million to an estimated 400,000.
Middle East watchdogs say that ISIS is involved in a systematic cleansing of Assyrians although they do not acknowledge their actions.
“They don’t care what it’s called; they are just following their ideology and that means getting rid of churches and minorities. It is the Islamic State, and there’s no room for anyone else,” said MEMRI Director Steven Stalinsky.
“This has been going on for some time, a systematic campaign to rid the region of any vestiges of Christianity.”
The White House has condemned ISIS after a release of a video showing the execution of Ethiopian Christians in Libya was released Sunday.
The video shows ISIS terrorists shooting and beheading the Christians.
“We express our condolences to the families of the victims and our support to the Ethiopian government and people as they grieve for their fellow citizens,” National Security Council spokesperson Bernadette Meehan said in a statement. “That these terrorists killed these men solely because of their faith lays bare the terrorists’ vicious, senseless brutality.”
The 29-minute video comes on the heels of Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani saying ISIS was behind a suicide attack that killed at least 35 people. The attacks show ISIS is beginning to develop the ability to attack far outside their strongholds in Iraq and Syria.
The video also mirrors their previous killing of Coptic Christians in Egypt.
Ethiopia has been in the sights of Islamic terrorists because they are part of the African Union force that has driven the Islamic terrorists group al-Shabaab out of their neighbor Somalia.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, The New York Times best-selling author of The Harbinger and The Mystery of the Shemitah, addressed the United Nations on Friday about the worsening persecution of Christians in the Middle East and other parts of the world.
Cahn, the senior rabbi at the Beth Israel Worship Center in Wayne, New Jersey, was invited along with other Jewish and Christian leaders, businessmen and high-ranking military officials, to speak at the conference entitled, “The Persecution of Christians Globally: A Threat to International Peace and Security.”
Italian officials have 15 Muslims under arrested after it was discovered they singled out Christians to throw overboard during a crossing from Africa to Italy.
Authorities in Palermo, Sicily, are charging the Muslims with suspicion of murder.
The Christians were part of a boatload of migrants who left Libya Tuesday in a rubber boat. Police say the Muslims, who are from Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal, began to throw the Christians overboard as they were in the middle of the crossing.
The dead are from Nigeria and Ghana.
The remaining passengers reportedly formed a human chain to stop the Muslims from being able to kill anyone else on the boat.
Thousands each year attempt to make the voyage from Africa to the European coast and die in the process. Rarely do people die from deliberate means as the Christians who were killed in this incident.
The Middle East Media Research Institute is reporting that the terrorist group ISIS has destroyed a Christian graveyard in Mosul.
Pictures of the terrorists smashing headstones in Mosul were posted online titled “Leveling Graves and Erasing Pagan Symbols.”
“The April 16 destruction of Christian graves in Mosul, Iraq by the Islamic State (ISIS) is part of the organization’s ongoing campaign against Christianity, in the Middle East and throughout the Muslim world,” said Steven Stalinsky, executive director of The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
The terrorists claim that Islamic teaching requires them to destroy any grave higher than ground level. Images on the graves must also be destroyed.
“It is important to note that ISIS is documenting its destruction and desecration of Christian sites and its attacks on Christian communities, and on other minorities’ sites and communities, and is disseminating these images worldwide via social media,” Stalinsky told Fox News. “By doing this, ISIS is not only showcasing what it is doing, but is also mocking the West by demonstrating that it is doing so freely, with no one trying to stop it.”
Mosul has been under the control of the terrorists since June 2014.
A 15-year-old Pakistani Christian youth who was burned over 55% percent of body in an attack by Muslims has died.
We reported on the attack on Nouman Masih, who had been beaten and then burned by Muslim youths after he told them he was a Christian. The Muslim youths had been on the way to Friday prayers when they found Nouman and attacked him.
Doctors treated Nouman with the best items they had available but the hospital did not have a burn ward to provide the specialized treatment needed for Nouman’s wounds. The boy died around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.
A spokesman for the British Pakistani Christian Association said that Nouman made a point to say he forgave his attackers before he died.
“He just said that he forgave them. That’s more like a Christian forgiveness, but he didn’t want his attackers to prevail and enact their crimes on anybody else. He was just being very magnanimous in a Christian way saying, ‘I have forgiven them but I want them to go through the justice system,'” BPCA Chairman Wilson Chowdhry told the Christian Post.
“You can imagine what it was like for him to have kerosene poured on him and being set alight,” Chowdhry continued. “He was very vocal in the fact that he didn’t want that to happen to anyone else, especially at the moment when Christians are under some very extreme tension.”
The Muslim youth who killed Nouman have yet to be identified so local officials say they can do nothing until they find the attackers.
Over 100 Pakistani Christians were arrested after the lynching of two Islamists believed to be involved in two church bombings that killed 17 Christians. Now, some of the prisoners have been released and are showing evidence of brutal treatment from Pakistani police.
The International Christian Concern says that some of the 30 released from jail say they were beaten and given other tortures in an attempt to get them to confess to being a part of the killings.
“They were telling us that they were beaten to a pulp,” ICC President Jeff King told The Christian Post at Tuesday’s press conference. “A lot of times, what they are saying is that they get beaten to a pulp and get left on their doorstep in a bloody mess, and the whole point was to extract confessions.”
King said that the ICC condemns the killing of the two Muslim men and that just needs to be done, but that Pakistani officials are using the situation to target and harass Christians.
We would seek for justice for those Muslim families but arbitrary arrests and detention are not the way to get justice,” King told the Christian Post. “They only serve further flames of injustice and hatred. Frankly, it is a mark of a Banana republic and an incompetent police force.”
“They are just fishing and seeing if they can beat confessions out of random people from the neighborhood,” King added. “Foreign police forces know that this is actually terrible police work because people will falsely confess to end their beatings. But, you are not getting justice.”
Two Muslim youths on their way to Friday prayers stopped a Christian boy, beat him and then set him on fire.
The victim, identified as “Nuaman” by the local Christian group The Voice Society, is hospitalized in Lahore in Punjab province with burns on 55 percent of his body.
The two Muslim attackers have not been identified.
“I told them that I am Christian. They started beating me, when I tried running, both boys started following me through the street and then they threw Kerosene on me and burnt me,” Nuaman was quoted as saying in the Christian Post. “I kept on running when a heap of sand came my way, I lied down on the sand … [A] few people from the community … [extinguished] fire by putting sand on me. I became unconscious, and they called 1122 Emergency medical helpline and called [for] an ambulance.”
The attack is being considered a revenge attack for the lynching of two Muslim terrorists following an attack on a Christian church March 15th that left 17 people dead and 80 injured. A Taliban splinter group claimed responsibility for the attack.
A Christian woman that was suspended after a Muslim co-worker rushed to her employer to complain she was witnessed to has had her appeal denied by a British tribunal.
Victoria Wasteney, 38, thought she had become friends with Muslim Enya Nawaz, 27. The two worked at St. John Howard Center in London. The two discussed Islam and Christianity and Wasteney shared her church’s efforts to fight human trafficking.
“The whole basis of our conversations around faith started with her telling me that she’d had an encounter with God, that she felt she had been brought to London for a particular reason,” Wasteney told reporters. “We were both interested in what one another were involved in. It was part of the normal process of building a relationship with someone, to talk about primarily things we were interested in outside of work.”
In 2013, Nawaz told Wasteney about some health concerns. Wasteney offered to pray for the woman she thought was a friend and did so. She also gave the woman a book about a Muslim that turned to Christianity.
Nawaz then rushed to their employer alleging that Wasteney was attempting to witness and convert her.
After suspending Wasteney for nine months with pay, a disciplinary panel last year declared that Wasteney was guilty of “bullying and harassment” for talking about her faith and praying over her sick co-worker even though the co-worker gave permission. She was given a written warning and allowed to resume working but not in her specialized field.
“I knew she was from a different faith background and I was respectful of that. I didn’t force my beliefs on anyone at any point. Surely there should be room for mutual conversations about faith, where appropriate, in the workplace?” she said in a statement on Wednesday.
“I am extremely disappointed with the tribunal’s decision to side with my employer,” Wasteney continued. “There is already an unnatural caginess around faith and belief which is an obstruction to building meaningful relationships in the workplace.”
Surviving by drinking lotion while hiding in a closet, a Kenyan teenager is praising God for surviving the brutal attack by Islamic terrorists on a University in Garissa.
Cynthia Cheroitich, 19, spoke to reporters at a local hospital after being treated for dehydration and malnourishment.
“I was just praying to my God, saying that if it has come to my day, it has reached. But if it not yet, let God decide whatever He likes,” she said.
She said that she chose the closet after the Islamist gunmen yelled any student hiding under their beds would “come out very fast.” She covered herself with clothes so that a quick check of the closet wouldn’t reveal her presence.
She said that when she began to feel hungry and thirsty, her only option was a bottle of body oil.
Cynthia was so terrified that she did not believe at first the Kenyan military forces were actually there to help her. The troops had to find a teacher to explain to the girl that it was safe to leave the closet.
The Islamic terrorist group Al-Shabaab admitted the attack which was targeting Christian students. Witnesses said that the terrorists would ask who the student worshiped and if they answered Christ they were shot on the spot.
