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ISLAM, RELIGION OF PEACE, TRUTH VS MYTH
ISLAM IN 1570

BEHEADING IS THE TRADITIONAL M.O. UNDER ISLAM..

THE CONQUEST OF CYPRUS AND THE HEROES AND MARTYRS OF FAMAGUSTA

The Turks came on with 70,000 men, including their shock troops, the praetorian guard of the sultan, the Janissaries — Christian youths taken as taxation from their families, trained up in the art of war, converted to Islam, and given the power of the sword and the possibility of advancement.

The Catholic defenders of Cyprus were frightfully outnumbered — by about 7 to 1 — but then again, the Knights of Malta had faced even stiffer odds. The two key points in Cyprus were Nicosia and Famagusta. The city of Nicosia held out for nearly seven weeks. Finally, reduced to 500 soldiers, it surrendered, expecting the civilians to be spared, even as the Christian troops were enslaved.

Instead, the Muslim attackers butchered every Christian they could find — 20,000 victims, murdered regardless of rank, sex, or age, save perhaps for 1,000 women and children who would be sold as slaves. The Muslims knew something about commerce, too, and those with an eye for harem-flesh tried to spare the most valuable Europeans.
That left the former Crusader fortress of Famagusta as the only defensible point on the island. Inspired by the Turks’ display of severed Venetian heads from Nicosia, the Christian soldiers put up a stiff defense and were at one point resupplied by gallant Venetian sailors.

The Muslim Ottomans have conquered Cyprus, an Island that belonged to the Republic of Venice, but the second most important city, Famagusta, resisted the brutal siege by the Turks. Men, women and children fought valiantly.

In August 1571, after ten months of resistance, the Venetian commander Marco Antonio Bragadino, forced by hunger, enter negotiations with the Turks. Terms were agreed: The garrison would be exiled, the people spared. The troops were disarmed and boarded transports — and then they and their commanders were slaughtered. But for Marco Antonio, the Mohammedans reserved a special torture. He was not killed immediately. Instead, his nose and ears were severed, and, as T. C. F. Hopkins has it in Confrontation at Lepanto:

He was pilloried in Famagusta and dragged around the Ottoman camp in nothing but a loincloth and a donkey’s saddle and made to kiss the ground in front of Lala Mustapha’s tent. The Ottoman soldiers were encouraged to throw garbage and excrement on him, and to mock his misery, and to pull hairs from his beard . . . Lala Mustapha himself came out to spit on the Venetian and to empty his chamber pot over the old man’s head . . .

And even that was not the end of it. Marco Antonio — still, for the moment, alive — was flayed, skinned like a trophy, and then his corpse was stuffed and sent to the sultan, who had the prize stored in a warehouse of other human trophies — a slave prison.

ISLAM IN THE XXI CENTURY
Isis videos ‘excite’ group’s supporters
Research suggests brutal films, such as that of the killing of David Haines, are inspiring potential jihadis

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/14/isis-videos-excite-groups-supporters-david-haines-syria

Robert Booth

The Guardian, Sunday 14 September 2014

Graphic videos showing British and American hostages being murdered by Islamic State (Isis) fighters are stirring support among foreign jihadis who are excited by a new confrontation with the west, monitoring of Islamists’ social media activity suggests.

15 September 2014 Breaking News ISIS ISIL surfaced video of British aid David Haines beheaded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=SxcVHjyPPXc