A heatwave scorching Egypt has left 42 people dead.
Egyptian officials said 21 people died on Sunday and 19 more died on Monday. They added most of the dead were elderly people although they confirmed one German national, patients at a psychiatric hospital and some prisoners also died from the heat.
Temperatures in parts of the northern half of the country reached 120 and in the lower part of the nation topped 115. The capital city of Cairo hit 105.
The heatwave has also caused power outages. The Cairo subway was shut down due to power loss and many neighborhoods are getting one hour of power a day.
The heat wave is also causing problems in other nations.
In Beirut, Lebanon, which is on the Mediterranean coast, temperatures are in the 90’s but with 50% or greater humidity the conditions are almost unbearable.
“We had electricity from 3am to 6am last night, and the power comes on one hour during the day,” said Hasan, who lives in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where power cuts have been especially dire during the heatwave. “Officials sit in their offices with electricity.”
On Friday, the heat and humidity in Bandar Mahshahr, Iran, combined to give a feeling of a temperature of 165.
“That was one of the most incredible temperature observations I have ever seen and it is one of the most extreme readings ever in the world,” said AccuWeather Meteorologist Anthony Sagliani in a statement.
The FBI has issued an alert to officials in Colorado and Wyoming over a group of Middle Eastern men who have been harassing military families in the region.
Areas specifically mentioned by the FBI alert include Greeley, Colorado and Cheyenne, Wyoming.
One incident had two Middle Eastern men approaching a woman outside her home. The men stated they knew she was the wife of a U.S. interrogator. The men laughed when she denied the claim and then the men entered a dark-colored sedan that contained two other Middle Eastern men.
Other incidents have the men attempting to gain information.
“On numerous occasions family members of military personnel were confronted by Middle Eastern males in front of their homes,” the FBI alert reads. “The males have attempted to obtain personal information about the military men’s family members through intimidation.”
“The family members have reported feeling scared,” it added.
ISIS has stated that they intend to strike military members in their homes and last March published a list of addresses they claimed belonged to U.S. military members.
The alert also says the FBI cannot confirm if the incidents involve the same men.
Those who attended the special service Tuesday evening, June 30th were given a message of hope from bestselling author and internationally recognized teacher on the middle east, muslims and the islamic culture, Joel Richardson.
“ “The day is coming…after the storms…we’ll be raised up…and we will see Him…and embrace Him! That is reality. We will see Jesus with our own eyes, sitting on the throne in Jerusalem. It will be as real as we are right NOW. ” Richardson went on to say “Let us encourage each other in these days. If our hope is fixed on saving our country we will miss saving the world. We have to encourage one another!”
Mr. Richardson spoke of a great revival in Egypt and of how the Lord is working in both Iran and Iraq. Mosques are emptying and thousands are coming to Christ. “My heart is encouraged that people are waking up across the earth. My hope is the encouragement tonight will be at the foundation of everything we do. As we approach the days to come, we remember to prepare out of faith and not out of fear. We have confidence in our God and we have confidence of what IS coming!”
The Islamic terrorist group ISIS, attempting to solidify their takeover of the ancient city of Palmyra, have forced the residents of the town to fill an ancient amphitheater to watch the execution of 20 men.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the men were accused of serving as members of the army for President Bashir al-Assad. The method of execution was not reported by the group.
The United Nations World Heritage site was overrun by the terrorists last week. The U.N. also reported that residents told them the Syrian government forced them to remain until all troops withdrew from the city, placing them at the mercy of the terrorists.
The terrorists have also killed 67 civilians, including 14 children and 12 women, in the city of al-Sikhni. The terrorists said they were harboring regime forces to hide them from ISIS.
The UN has also reported that the terrorists burned a young woman alive because she would not be used as a sex slave by the group.
“They are institutionalizing sexual violence,” Zainab Bangura, the U.N.’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, said of the Islamic State. “The brutalization of women and girls is central to their ideology.”
The chair of the council for Justice & Peace of the Irish Catholic Bishop’s conference is speaking out about Christian persecution around the world, saying that 11 Christians are killed every hour for their faith in Christ.
Bishop John McAreavey cited a Pew Research survey showing Christianity is the most prosecuted religion around the world with persecution against them reported in 110 countries.
“Many of these countries have significant trade links with Ireland. Persecution is increasing in China. In North Korea a quarter of the country’s Christians live in forced labour camps. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the Maldives all feature in the 10 worst places to be Christian,” McAreavey said. “According to the International Society for Human Rights, a non-religious organization, 80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed against Christians.”
McAreavey said that the persecution of Christians in the Middle East is “a threat to our common humanity” and that the stability of the entire planet is at risk because of the violence in the region. He also condemned Western leaders who are not taking steps to help persecuted Christians.
“Perhaps because of a fear of being seen as less than aggressively secular in their own country,” he said, many governments of majority Christian countries in the West seem reluctant to give direct aid to churches and religious minorities.”
McAreavey defined the loss of religious freedom and persecution as something that “can run from subtle cultural exclusion of the religious voice from the public square and refusal to accommodate reasonable differences of conscience to active discrimination, forced displacement, exploitation and loss of life.”
Terrorist group ISIS is hanging dead bodies from the entrances to cities as a way to reinforce their control over the population.
Photographs from the city of Hawija show the bodies of men hanging upside down from the metal sign at the entrance to the city. The flag of the terrorist group is painted on the metal sign above the bodies.
Some of the bodies appear to be wearing the uniform of the Iraqi military.
The city is the same location where ISIS had been parading captives through the streets in metal cages similar to the one used to burn alive a Jordanian pilot. Intelligence officials say that the terrorist group is looking to make Hawija their new operational hub.
The group also released a photo of a young boy carrying around the severed head of an Iraqi soldier with the caption “this is how the cubs of the Caliphate are raised up.”
Long rumored to be happening, the Nigerian Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram has pledged their allegiance to ISIS and is calling on Muslims around the world to do the same.
“We announce our allegiance to the Caliph of the Muslims … and will hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity, in hardship and ease, and to endure being discriminated against, and not to dispute about rule with those in power, except in case of evident infidelity regarding that which there is a proof from Allah,” leader Abubakar Shekau said in an audio recording posted to Twitter on Saturday. “We call upon Muslims everywhere to pledge allegiance to the Caliph.”
Boko Haram, which has been attempting to form their own caliphate since 2009, has been releasing videos stating that Islam is commanded to take over the world and that they would not stop until every Christian in the world was killed.
“Boko Haram joining the ISIS fold makes sense to both groups,” Jacob Zenn with the Jamestown Foundation told CNN. “Boko Haram will get legitimacy, which will help its recruiting, funding and logistics as it expands into (French-speaking) West Africa. It will also get guidance from ISIS in media warfare and propaganda. Previously Boko Haram was a sort of outcast in the global Jihadi community. Now it is perhaps ISIS’s biggest affiliate.”
The announcement by Boko Haram marks the 31st terrorist group to pledge allegiance to ISIS.
A man that the U.S. government has designated a terrorist has been found leading Iraqi forces in their fight against ISIS.
The man is Major General Qasem Suleimani, the Iranian spymaster and leader of the special operations wing of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Photographs from the war theater around Tikrit showed Suleimani providing direction to senior Iraqi officials fighting to take the town back from ISIS. Analysis say the discovery shows the growing influence of Iran on the Iraqi government.
“I know we’re keeping our distance physically from them in Baghdad,” Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J said. “Have we ceded most of the governance of Iraq to Iranians?…And will the military operations that are undergoing, which we are watching, divide the country and require us in some ways to spend more of our resources?”
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that he shared the concern of the representatives about who would be influencing the region if the troops drive ISIS out of the major cities in the region.
Intelligence officials say that 2/3 of the Shiite militia fighting ISIS are loyal to Iran.
ISIS terrorists shocked man by releasing 19 Assyrian Christians out of the hundreds they captured during raids last week.
The terrorists at the last minute kept a 6-year-old girl and a negotiator told the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) the terrorists likely plan to use the girl as a bargaining chip.
AINA estimates that over the last week, ISIS has captured up to 373 Christians from various villages.
The UK based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Saturday that a Sharia court ordered the release of 29 captives, not 19, and ISIS is now showing they will ignore their own courts.
“ISIS has claimed for a long time to follow rules, and it claims that these Sharia courts will impose limits,” Graeme Wood of The Atlantic told CNN. “They can attempt to get credibility by showing that they follow rules and that they have some kind of transparent process that follows their particular implementation of Sharia law.”
Witnesses say that at least 15 of the Christians have been killed by the terrorists.
A group of Israeli divers are being hailed as heroes after uncovering what one government agency calls the “biggest ancient coin find in the nation’s history.”
The divers said they first found what looked like a toy coin from a children’s game on the ocean floor. Curious to see how it came to rest there, they discovered that the coin was part of a treasure trove of coins with Arabic writing.
The coins were dated to the 11th century when the Fatimid Islamic dynasty was the dominant power of the Middle East.
“(This is) a great treasure from a (vessel) that was probably taking the hoard, possibly tax revenue, to Cairo but sank in Caesarea harbour,” Jacob Sharvit of the Israel Antiquities Authority told Reuters during a visit to the site.
“Perhaps the treasure of coins was meant to pay the salaries of the Fatimid military garrison which was stationed in Caesarea and protected the city,” Sharvit added.
The value of the gold is around $240,000.
Archaeologists that have studied the coins say they have found tooth marks and bent edges that indicate the coins were tested as part of trading.
