Free Republic

CHURCH FORCED TO MOVE HEADQUARTERS Two-million-member Church of Christ seeking to avoid religious violence. April 26 (Compass) -- Devastation caused by religious conflict and the hostile attitude of Muslims toward Christian refugees returning to their villages in the central Nigerian state of Plateau has forced the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) to relocate its regional headquarters from the town of Wase to Kadarko. “The decision to relocate our regional office and the church in Wase town was made by our church council following the complete destruction of all our churches in Wase town and the killing and displacement of...

A pastor who was also an active missionary has been shot dead while he was praying in a chapel.   At 9.00pm on Monday 12 January gunmen burst into a churchyard in Isfara in the north of Tajikistan and fired several rounds through a window at Sergei Bessarab as he was kneeling in prayer. Forum 18 news agency reported that on hearing the gunfire, his wife, Tamara, rushed to her husband’s side but he was already dead. Reuters also carried the story and confirmed he was shot 13 times with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.  A local newspaper had only a...

Iraqi Shi'ite leader al-Khoei assassinated in Najaf KUWAIT, April 10 (Reuters) - Senior Iraqi Sh'ite leader Abdul Majid al-Khoei was assassinated at the mosque in the holy city of Najaf on Thursday, a member of his family foundation told Reuters. Ali Jabr, a member of the London-based Khoei foundation, confirmed to Reuters by phone that Abdel Majid was dead. The murder is sure to raise tensions among Iraq's majority Shi'ite population. Majid is the son of the late Grand Ayatollah al-Khoei, spiritual leader of Iraq's Shi'ites at the time of the 1991 Gulf War. Al-Khoei's nephew, Jawad al-Khoei, told Reuters...

(CBS) Ten U.S. soldiers were injured, six or seven of them seriously, in a grenade and small arms attack at Camp Pennsylvania in northern Kuwait, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann, who is traveling with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division. Strassmann said the grenades were rolled into two commanders' tents at the camp. When officers ran from the tents, they were hit by small arms fire. "From our reports it appears that a terrorist penetrated Camp Pennsylvania, one or more terrorists threw two hand grenades into a tent," said George Heath, spokesman at Fort Campbell, home base of the...