ISIS Has a New Focus: Killing Christians and Bombing Churches Wherever They Can Find Them - MICHAEL SNYDER CHARISMA NEWS

Libyan forces allied with the U.N.-backed government fire a shell at Islamic State fighters' positions in Sirte, Libya (REUTERS/Ismail Zitouny)

ISIS Has a New Focus: Killing Christians and Bombing Churches Wherever They Can Find Them

8/17/2016 MICHAEL SNYDER  CHARISMA NEWS

If you are a Christian, ISIS wants to kill you.

Our politicians keep telling us that our battle with ISIS is not a "religious war," but to ISIS it most certainly is. As you will see below, ISIS has a new focus. They are very clear about the fact that they intend to kill as many "citizens of the cross" as they possibly can, and they plan to bomb churches wherever they can find them. In a previous article, I explained how an entire church in the U.S. ended up on an ISIS kill list, and we just saw in France that they are willing to strike anywhere and at any time. Religious targets now appear to be a top priority for ISIS, and that means that every church and every Christian in the Western world needs to start thinking differently about security.

Let's start by taking a look at what is happening in Africa. Boko Haram's brutality has made headlines all over the planet, and the infamous terror organization has pledged complete loyalty to ISIS at this point. In the past, Boko Haram has hit both Christian and Muslim targets, but now the new leader of Boko Haram is promising to following ISIS guidelines and to focus primarily on bombing churches and killing Christians.

Earlier this month, a man named Abu Musab al-Barnawi announced that he had taken over the infamous Boko Haram organization. And his first message as Boko Haram's leader was as clear as it was concise—on his watch, the group's main focus will be killing Christians.

According to an interview published this month by the self-proclaimed Islamic State group (ISIS), al-Barnawi threatened to bomb churches and kill Christians, but will no longer attack places used by Muslims.

During the interview, Abu Musab al-Barnawi went on to say that his organization will be "booby-trapping and blowing up every church that we are able to reach, and killing all of those who we find from the citizens of the cross."

There are millions upon millions of Christians in Nigeria and in other African nations where Boko Haram is active. Let us hope and pray that Boko Haram is not able to carry out the types of attacks that they are now promising.

And of course it isn't just in Africa that Christians need to be concerned. The latest issue of the official ISIS magazine called Dabiq is urging Muslims in the western world to copy the recent church attack in France.

On the day he was announced as Boko Haram's new leader, ISIS used the latest issue of Dabiq to paint Christianity as a "false" religion and Christians as "cross worshippers." It encouraged Muslims to attack churches in a ways similar to the atrocity in France last month, where two men entered a Catholic church in small town Normandy, slit the throat of an 86-year-old priest, and gravely wounded a nun.

We need to understand that ISIS is not necessarily looking to hit political or military targets.

They are openly telling us that religious targets are now a priority, and they could literally strike anywhere in the entire country.

Thousands of American Christians have already been put on ISIS kill lists, and ISIS has already instructed their operatives to kill those that they can. The following comes from an excellent article by Bethany Blankley:

According to a report recently made public, early this year, ISIS specifically identified 15,000 Christian Americans for death and instructed jihadis already in America to begin widespread murder.

The Kill List report comes in the wake of ISIS already publicly warning American and British Christians that "they were next." British police last week publicly warned its 5.4 million Christians to be on alert and in some areas increased security.

And there have already been some very close calls. In fact, if the authorities had not intervened in time earlier this year, a church up in Michigan could have been the scene of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

In February, Khial Abu-Rayyan, 21, of Dearborn Heights, Mich., was arrested after he told an undercover FBI agent he was preparing to "shoot up" a major church near his home on behalf of ISIS. A month earlier, the Rev. Roger Spradlin of Valley Baptist Church – one of the biggest congregations in Bakersfield, Calif. – told attendees that they had received a threat written in Arabic.

Today, churches all over America are hiring armed security guards and are holding self-defense classes. When I was a child, I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams that someone would come in and start shooting during a church service, but times have changed. To an Islamic terrorist, a church is a target that will bring you a lot of glory, and here in the Western world, we need to understand that.

And of course, it isn't just Islamic terror we have to contend with these days. Everywhere you look, traces of the Christian faith are being removed from public life, and those who want to freely exercise their faith are being suppressed.

"There are children being prohibited from writing Merry Christmas to the soldiers, senior citizens being banned from praying over their meals in the Senior Center, the VA banning the mention of God in military funerals, numerous attempts to have veterans memorials torn down if they have any religious symbols, such as a cross, and I could go on and on," said Liberty Institute Founder Kelly Shackleford.

As I was writing this article, my internet suddenly went out. One moment it was working, and then the next moment it was not.

In the same way, we need to realize that a single moment can change everything. Even moments before the attacks, nobody suspected that anyone would strike the Pulse nightclub in Orlando or a sleepy little church in the French countryside.

But those attacks did happen, and without a doubt there will be even more horrific Islamic terror attacks here in the United States in the months and years to come.

We need to be vigilant, and we need to be on guard, because times have changed and there really are people out there that intend to kill us if they can.

Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of End Of The American Dream. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled "The Rapture Verdict"is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

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How Obama Ushered in the New Age of Christian Martyrdom - BIN

How Obama Ushered in the New Age of Christian Martyrdom

By Raymond Ibrahim October 13, 2015 Breaking Israel News

“Do you realize what you have done?” — Vladimir Putin, President of Russia

Everywhere that U.S. leadership helped Islamic jihadis topple secular autocrats in the name of “democracy and freedom,” indigenous Christian minorities are forced either to convert to Islam or die.

Many are accepting death.

Most recently, on August 28 near Aleppo, the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) tortured, mutilated, publicly raped, beheaded and crucified 12 Christians for saying they “would never renounce Christ” for Muhammad.

The jihadis took one group in front of a large crowd. They cut off the fingertips of a 12-year-old boy, who steadfastly refused to submit to Islam. They “severely beat him, telling his father they would stop the torture only if he, the father, returned to Islam.” He refused, so they “also tortured and beat him and the two other ministry workers. The three men and the boy then met their deaths in crucifixion.”

According to a Christian leader associated with the martyrs, “They were left on their crosses for two days. No one was allowed to remove them.” A sign saying “INFIDELS” was placed next to their crosses.

The other eight Christians, including two women, aged 29 and 33, were also ordered to renounce Christ and embrace Islam before a large crowd. When they refused,

“The Islamic extremists then publicly raped the women, who continued to pray during the ordeal, leading the ISIS militants to beat them all the more furiously.

“As the two women and the six men knelt before they were beheaded, they were all praying.

“‘Villagers said some were praying in the name of Jesus, others said some were praying the Lord’s prayer, and others said some of them lifted their heads to commend their spirits to Jesus,’ the ministry director said. “One of the women looked up and seemed to be almost smiling as she said, ‘Jesus!'”

“After they were beheaded, their bodies were hung on crosses, the ministry director said.”

The same is happening in the two other Arab nations where the U.S., under the pretext of “freedom and democracy,” overthrew the secular dictators who had long kept a lid on the jihadis: Libya and Iraq.

Late last year, Andrew White, an Anglican priest known as the “Vicar of Baghdad,” recounted the horrific atrocities against Christians in Iraq — including seeing their children chopped in half for refusing to embrace Islam:

“ISIS turned up and they said to the [Christian] children, ‘You say the words [shehada, convert to Islam], that you will follow Muhammad.’ And the children, all under 15, four of them, they said, ‘No, we love Jesus [Yesua]. We have always loved Jesus. We have always followed Jesus. Jesus has always been with us.” They [ISIS] said, ‘Say the words!’ They [children] said, ‘No, we can’t.’ [White starts sobbing] They chopped all their heads off. How do you respond to that? You just cry. They are my children. That is what we have been going through. That is what we are going through.”

Targeting Christian children in Iraq goes back to soon after the ousting of Saddam Hussein. In June 2008, a Canadian parliamentary committee heard about how “militant Muslims” were crucifying Christian children: “Since the war began in 2003, about 12 children, many as young as 10, have been kidnapped and killed, then nailed to makeshift crosses near their homes to terrify and torment their parents.”

In one of his Facebook postings, White, who regularly posted pictures of Christian martyrs, wrote:

“The photo I was sent today was the most awful I have ever seen. A family of 8 all shot through the face lying in a pool of blood, with their Bible open on the couch. They would not convert. It cost them their life.”

White also told of how ISIS members came to a Christian man and said, “Either you convert to Islam or we kill all your children.” The father, in desperation, declared the shehada: “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah,” thus becoming a Muslim. He then phoned White:

“Abouna, abouna [father, father] I said the words! Does that mean Jesus doesn’t love me anymore? I have always loved Jesus but I said those words because I couldn’t see my children being killed!”

“No Elias,” White said. “Jesus still loves you — he will always love you.”

There are many historic accounts of Christians slaughtered for refusing to renounce Christ for Muhammad — whether 100,000 Georgians beheaded or burned alive, or a “mere” 813 Italians decapitated, or else “converting out of fear. A report, for instance, from Medieval Egypt states:

In 1389, a great procession of Copts who had accepted Muhammad under fear of death, marched through Cairo. Repenting of their apostasy, they now wished to atone for it by…returning to Christianity. So as they marched, they announced that they believed in Christ and renounced Muhammad. They were seized and all the men were beheaded one after another in an open square before the women. But this did not terrify the women; so they, too, were all martyred (Crucified Again, pgs. 113-114).

In Libya, earlier this year, the Islamic State released a video depicting 21 Coptic Christians being decapitated in the North African nation. While holding their victims’ bodies down, Islamic State members shoved their fingers in the Christians’ eyes, craned their heads back, and sliced away at their throats with knives. As with the recent public rape, beheading, and crucifixion of the 12 Christians near Aleppo, some of the Egyptian Christians were also seen praying to Christ. One Coptic priest later described the scene:

“The name of Jesus was their last word… With that name, whispered at the very last, their martyrdom was sealed.

ISIS terrorists prepare to murder 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya, February 2015.

Over one month before the video appeared, the BBC had falsely reported that the majority of those now slaughtered Copts were “released.” Sadly, such downplaying of Muslim persecution of Christians is standard for the BBC.

When the Islamic State released another video in April of more Christians in Libya being massacred, a masked IS spokesman addressed “Christians everywhere“:

“We say to Christians everywhere, the Islamic State will expand, with Allah’s permission. And it will reach you even if you are in fortified strongholds. So whoever enters Islam will have security… But whoever refuses will see nothing from us but the edge of a spear. The men will be killed and the children will be enslaved, and their wealth will be taken as booty. This is the judgment of Allah and His Messenger.”

The next scene portrays the captive Ethiopian Christians being shot in the back of the head or having their heads carved off.

The ongoing slaughter of Christians by the Islamic State, and the destruction of churches and antiquities, must be laid at the feet of those Western nations that, intentionally or unintentionally, paved the way for the Islamic State.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said before the United Nations, while addressing those nations that supported the “Arab Spring” — chief among them America:

Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty and social disaster — and nobody cares a bit about human rights, including the right to life. I cannot help asking those who have forced that situation: Do you realize what you have done?

Whether they realize it or not, they continue to do it in Syria — with Christians often paying the highest price.[1]

Read more at https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/51015/how-obama-ushered-in-the-new-age-of-christian-martyrdom-opinion/#MePCCEVkjZVTWwFA.99

Islam Unveiled - Raymond Ibrahim CBN News Contributor, Middle East and Islam Expert

Ibrahim: Islam Unveiled

Raymond Ibrahim

CBN News Contributor, Middle East and Islam Expert

www.raymondibrahim.com

<< US Chose to Stay Silent on Muslim Persecution of Christians |Blog Home

Kidnapped Nuns 

No Longer 

Bear the Cross

A new video of the 12 Christian nuns kidnapped in Syria recently appeared. In it, the nuns are taped sitting in a room and being questioned by an unseen man, presumably a member of the kidnappers. He asks them how they are, if they’ve been mistreated, etc.

They respond that they are being treated fine, that they very much look forward to being returned to their convent, that they heartily thank the world for its concern, and that they continually pray that God grant peace to all nations.

Their words say one thing, their expressions and demeanor another. Put differently, as female captives of Islamic jihadis, what else could they say but what they were told to say? (See, for example, how the nun in glasses had to be forced to face the camera at 1:46.) Even if one of them dared to say the “wrong thing,” it naturally would have been edited out. Who knows how many takes it took to get the video—which includes a bizarre clip of the nuns having a snowball fight with their abductors—just right?

One thing, however, although minor, speaks volumes concerning the nature of their captivity. Although these same nuns, in pictures before they were kidnapped, often appear wearing the large pectoral crosses that nuns often wear, these are all gone in the recent video.

This is to be expected, considering the “pious” nature of their captors. According to strict Islamic teaching, Christians and other non-Muslims are forbidden to show any signs or expressions of their “polytheism” (shirk in Arabic). Indeed, this is spelled out clearly in the Conditions of Omar, which mainstream Muslim teaching attributes to the second caliph of the same name.

After the seventh century armies of Islam conquered a particular Christian region—possibly and ironically in Syria—Omar stipulated several conditions for Christians to accept, including “Not to display a cross on them [churches], nor raise our voices during prayer or readings in our churches anywhere near Muslims; Not to produce a cross or [Christian] book in the markets of the Muslims” (see Crucified Again, pgs. 24-27 for my new translation of the entire text of theConditions of Omar).

From here we understand the true plight of the captive nuns: to their captors, not only are the Christian women hostages to be used for leverage, but ideologically speaking, they are “infidel” inferiors—near sub-humans who are more akin to animals. Indeed, the same Caliph Omar whom Syria’s jihadis are hearkening to regarding the ban on Christian crosses is also on record saying that the life of a non-Muslim is equal to the life of a dog (Western readers should bear in mind that in Arab/Muslim culture, dogs are among the lowest life forms.)

As such, the plight of the kidnapped nuns remains precarious—all their scripted words aside. (See here for more on the history of Islamic jihad on Christian nuns.)

As for the effects of removing the nuns’ crosses, an Arabic column by one Father George makes an interesting point highlighting the difference between outwardly observant “Salafi” Muslims, presumably like the kidnappers—with their beards and prayer callouses on their foreheads—and inwardly observant Christians like these nuns:


St Paul says “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6:14). You removed the cross from the nuns’ breasts. Remove it! We do not rely on the visible. But know that the cross is firmly planted in the hearts of each and every one of those nuns.

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West Ignores 'Largest Massacre of Christians in Syria' - ISRAEL TODAY

West Ignores 'Largest Massacre of Christians in Syria'

Monday, November 25, 2013 |  Raymond Ibrahim  

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Christians

One of the worst Christian massacres—complete with mass graves, tortured-to-death women and children, and destroyed churches—recently took place in Syria, at the hands of the U.S.-supported jihadi “rebels”; and the U.S. government and its “mainstream media” mouthpiece are, as usual, silent (that is, when not actively trying to minimize matters).

The massacre took place in Sadad, an ancient Syriac Orthodox Christian habitation, so old as to be mentioned in the Old Testament. Most of the region’s inhabitants are poor, as Sadad is situated in the remote desert between Homs and Damascus (desert regions, till now, apparently the only places Syria’s Christians could feel secure; 600 Christian families had earlier fled there for sanctuary from the jihad, only to be followed by it).

In late October, the U.S-supported “opposition” invaded and occupied Sadad for over a week, till ousted by the nation’s military. Among other atrocities, 45 Christians—including women and children—were killed, several tortured to death; Sadat’s 14 churches, some ancient, were ransacked and destroyed; the bodies of six people from one family, ranging from ages 16 to 90, were found at the bottom of a well (an increasingly common fate for “subhuman” Christians).

The jihadis even made a graphic video (with English subtitles) of those whom they massacred, while shouting Islam’s victory-cry, “Allahu Akbar” (which John McCain equates to a Christian saying “thank God”). Another video, made after Sadad was liberated shows more graphic atrocities.

Here are the words of Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh, Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan of Homs and Hama (another detailed account, with pictures, appears here):

”What happened in Sadad is the most serious and biggest massacre of Christians in Syria in the past two years and a half… 45 innocent civilians were martyred for no reason, and among them several women and children, many thrown into mass graves. Other civilians were threatened and terrorized. 30 were wounded and 10 are still missing. For one week, 1,500 families were held as hostages and human shields. Among them children, the elderly, the young, men and women…. All the houses of Sadad were robbed and property looted. The churches are damaged and desecrated, deprived of old books and precious furniture… What happened in Sadad is the largest massacre of Christians in Syria and the second in the Middle East, after the one in the Church of Our Lady of Salvation in Iraq, in 2010.”

In the Iraqi attack of 2010, al-Qaeda linked jihadis stormed the church during service killing some 60 Christian worshippers (see here for graphic images of the aftermath).

While the archbishop is correct that this is the “largest massacre of Christians in Syria,” it is but the tip of the iceberg of the persecution the nation’s Christian minority has suffered—including beheadings, church bombings, kidnappings, rapes, and dislocation of hundreds of thousands of Christians—since the war broke out (see Syria entries in monthly persecution series).

A month before Sadad, another ancient Christian region, Ma‘loula, one of the world’s very few regions that still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus, was besieged by the jihadis, its churches bombarded and plundered, its inhabitants forced to convert to Islam or die. The last words of one man who refused were: "I am a Christian, and if you want to kill me for this, I do not object to it."

The archbishop concluded his statement concerning Sadad by asking: "We have shouted aid to the world but no one has listened to us. Where is the Christian conscience? Where is human consciousness? Where are my brothers? I think of all those who are suffering today in mourning and discomfort: We ask everyone to pray for us.”

Serge Trifkovic—who hails from a European region especially acquainted with Islamic jihad—responds to the archbishop as follows:

_”That no “human consciousness” is to be found in the White House, or in the editorial offices of the leading Western media, is now a matter of well-established record. Just try searching for “Sadad” (or alternatively “Saddad”) on the websites of the Department of State or The New York Times. Ditto the leading European dailies, the CNN/BBC/RTF, the human-rights defending “NGOs” et al.

“The problem, of which Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh appears unaware, is no longer in the Western elite’s mere indifference to the impending demise of Christianity in the lands of its birth, but in its active, ongoing, and open contribution to that demise. Cyprus (1974) and the Balkans (1991-9) provided the test, Iraq (2003-today) the conclusive proof. In Syria the Obama administration remains committed to supporting the rebels—ah, yes, only the “moderate” ones, like the Christian-murdering “Free Syrian Army” (discretion advised again), not “even though” the result will be the same, but precisely because it will be.”_

In one of the Arabic videos documenting the aftermath of the Sadad massacre, as the mutilated bodies of one family are drawn from a well (around :30 second mark), a middle-aged male relative, in tears, says:

”The most precious in the whole universe [his family], are now gone, leaving me alone, but thank God I am still surrounded by these loving people who remain. I want to say, let people [the jihadis] return to their minds. The problems of the world can only be solved by knowledge and brains. Enough insanity, the nerves of the people are shredded. Enough, enough—return to your minds; you people, you humans—return to your humanity, enough crimes.”

As a sign of the times, here is a Syrian, an “easterner,” evoking rationalism and humanity, products of the Christian West, at a time when the post-Christian West is governed by anything and everything—propaganda, emotionalism, mindless indoctrination—but the twain.

_Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians _

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