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BEIRUT (AP) — Islamic State militants have abducted at least 70 Christians, including women and children, after overrunning a string of villages in northeastern Syria, activists and relatives said Tuesday. The Sunni extremists, who follow a radical interpretation of Islam, have repeatedly targeted religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq since seizing control of large swaths of both countries. The group's fighters have ransacked churches, demolished Shiite and Sunni Muslim shrines, and enslaved women of the Yazidi community, a tiny sect IS considers heretical. The latest assault began before dawn on Monday, when the militants swept through the villages...

Citing the widespread destruction of churches and other Catholic institutions and the general situation of insecurity, the bishops of Niger have indefinitely suspended the operation of all Catholic schools, health centers, charities, and development agencies. The bishops said that this suspension would allow them to pray and reflection upon “the painful events we have just endured.” The bishops pleaded for donations and attributed the destruction to rampaging young people who were responding to caricatures of Muhammad that appeared in Charlie Hebdo. The West African nation of 17.1 million is 80% Muslim and 0.1% Catholic.

Since at least the time of the outset of the Iraq War—and quite possibly well before then—there has been much debate among those on the right over why Islamic militants have set their sights upon America and the West.

ISIS Says It Will Conquer Europe Soon, Undertake Religious Cleansing And Kill Ruthlessly By Kalyan Kumar | December 23, 2014 3:56 PM EST The radical terror group ISIS has claimed that it is only a matter of time before its fighters conquer Europe. The claim was made by the spokesman of the outfit to veteran journalist Juergen Todenhoefer, who undertook a risky visit to the the ISIS controlled areas in Mosul of Northern Iraq. "We will conquer Europe one day. It is not a question of we will conquer Europe, just a matter of when that will happen. But it...

"It is not a question of if we will conquer Europe, just a matter of when that will happen. But it is certain ... For us, there is no such thing as borders. There are only front lines.”These were the chilling words German journalist Jürgen Todenhöfer heard from an Islamic State militant during his recent, stunning visit behind those “front lines,” in Iraq and Syria. The militant was himself a German, one of hundreds of sympathizers joining the Islamic State’s ranks from Europe and the United States. Todenhöfer, 74, who has been reporting from war zones for 50 years, got...

Obama Administration Suppresses Talk of Muslim Persecution of ChristiansPosted By Raymond Ibrahim On July 17, 2014 @ 12:35 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 1 Comment Originally published by the Gatestone Institute.Along with an especially egregious list of atrocities committed against Christian minorities throughout the Islamic world, March also saw some callous indifference or worse from the U.S. government.President Barack Hussein Obama was criticized by human rights activists for not addressing the plight of Christians and other minorities during his talks with leaders in Saudi Arabia, where Christianity is banned.According to the Washington-based International Christian Concern (ICC) advocacy group, Obama did not “publicly...

"Christians and Muslims had always lived in an atmosphere of mutual trust; the attack on Maaloula has created a lot of distress." Islamists have invaded homes and continue to threaten the village, site of ongoing clashes between rebels and the army. The families who fled to Damascus and Beirut tell their story. The goal is to drive out Christians in order to eliminate Christianity.Beirut (AsiaNews) - According to families who fled Maaloula (Syria), some of their Muslim neighbours were involved in the attack that devastated their village located about fifty kilometres from Damascus, dispersing its residents. Perceived as a betrayal...

Rebels overran the ancient Christian village of Maaloula in Syria on the fourth of September, and held it for eleven days until the Syrian army could retake it. It always made for a curious target in a broad civil war. Maaloula had no particular strategic value; it’s 56 kilometers north of Damascus in rugged mountain territory, enough of a backwater that it’s one of the few places where Aramaic is still spoken along with Arabic. It’s off the highway between Damascus and Homs, and away from the railroad that links the two Syrian cities. Why bother with Maaloula at all?Lee...

Islamist terrorists have exploited the lawless Sinai to perpetrate vicious attacks on Egyptian Christians there, as reported earlier this week in the New York Times. Indeed, throughout Egypt, the Copts continue to be targeted and scapegoated for the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood. As defenseless and abandoned as Mideast Christians seem today, it is worth remembering their historical roots, and recognizing just how much the plight of Middle East Christians has deteriorated. Over 2,000 years ago, Christianity was born as a religion and spread from Jerusalem to other parts of the Levant, including territories in modern Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq,...

Pakistan's Blasphemy Law: Ethnic Cleansing Of Christians | Rescue Christians Feb 5, 2012 Children raped and tortured, families extorted, abuse and violence taking place at the expense of terrified victims who remain silent: this is the reality of what is happening to the Christian community in some suburban quarters of Karachi, Southern Pakistan's biggest city and the capital of the Sindh province. Speaking to Catholic news agency Fides, Michael Shind, working in Pakistan's Sindh province, gave a shocking statement condemning the situation for Christians in the Country. Jave, warned that for months now, Christians in the areas of EssaNagri, Ayub...

The Sudanese regime is on its way to becoming the next Iran, regardless of whether President Omar Bashir remains in power or not. The country is moving towards becoming a full-blown Sharia state, comparable to Iran, Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan under the Taliban. Towards that end, 500-700,000 Christians have been told to pack up and leave by April 8 or they’ll be treated as foreigners.   The Bashir regime has always been an enemy of the U.S. and those who value human rights but it is now doing everything it can to please its Islamist opposition. The regime knew...

Christians expelled from Homs From the Syrian secularist website al-Haqiqa. Arabic original here. For more information about the Islamist makeup of the "Free Syrian Army" from a source generally sympathetic to the rebels, see here. For an excellent analysis of the bias and misinformation about Syria in American media, see here. Armed men from the Faruq Brigade have succeeded in expelling most of the Christians of Homs and have seized their homes by force. Al-Haqiqa has learned from church sources in Homs that the city has been emptied of almost 90% of its Christians. It is expected that a complete...

On Sunday, the southern Sudanese began voting on a referendum to secede from the Republic of Sudan and establish their own sovereign nation. By all accounts, they will soon secede from the Arab, Islamic country and form an independent African, Christian and animist state. The consequences of their actions will reverberate around the world. This week’s referendum takes place in accordance with the US-brokered Comprehensive Peace Treaty between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement signed on January 9, 2005. The CPT officially ended the second Sudanese Civil War that began in 1983. The South Sudanese referendum will...

Unknown assailants detonated a bomb outside a Christian school in Gaza City before dawn Friday, causing no injuries. The explosion was heard in surrounding neighborhoods at around 4 a.m. Damage was visible at the entrance to the Zahwa Rosary School, which is run by Catholic nuns but caters mainly to Muslim students. Two nuns were in their convent adjacent to the school when the bomb went off, a school official said, and were shaken but unharmed. The official declined to be named, saying she was frightened by the incident and concerned for her safety. The incident appeared to be the...

04 April 2006, 14:41 Serbs should have access to Kosovo places of worship - Alexy II Moscow, April 4, Interfax - Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and all Russia said that the Serbian exodus from Kosovo is a tragedy and highlights the fact that Serbs should have access to their shrines in Kosovo. "Why is no attention paid to the destruction of Orthodox churches in the heart of Europe?" the patriarch said at a briefing in Moscow on Tuesday. "The fact that Serbs have to leave Kosovo is a tragedy for the people, because one should understand that the land...

No security or safety for young Christian girls in Egypt! Thanks to terrorist groups in Saudi Arabia and a complacent Egyptian government. The Canadian Coptic Association has previously appealed to Egyptian journalists and writers for help regarding the recent escalating phenomena of the kidnapping and sexual assault of minor Christian girls by known organized Muslim extremist groups. The young victims are subject to continuous terror, threat and rape to force them to convert to Islam and live with a member of the group. Unfortunately, our previous complaints have fallen on deaf ears which give us the impression that Christian children...

The genocidal ethnic cleansing in Sudan is one of the great under-reported stories of the last 10 years. The fanatical Muslim Arabs who dominate the government in Khartoum – monsters akin to Afghanistan's Taliban – are responsible for the deaths of at least 1 million Sudanese. The government encourages armed Arab militias to ride into black villages, on horseback or camelback, terrorizing unarmed civilians, kidnapping children, enslaving those they can carry away and raping young girls before leaving them for dead. One 13-year-old victim survived to tell her horror story of the "rape camps" set up purely to terrorize the...

Gideon Lichterman, 27, of Achiyah, east of Shilo, was murdered by Palestinian terrorists last night on his way to give a ride home to a fellow resident. A member of the town's secretariat, he heard that a friend - Tamir Dar, 25, a reserve soldier - needed a ride back to the community, and he volunteered to make the short trip. Gideon took along his 6-year-old daughter Moriah, as his wife was not home at the time. Along the way, terrorists waiting behind one of the bends in the road opened fire and seriously wounded both Gideon and his daughter....

Friday prayers at the mosque: A Jew is hiding behind me, come and cut off his head video Transcript: I advise you, oh America, Britain, and those whom Allah said about you: Allah's wrath upon you, the Jews, oh the sons of apes and pigs - there is no strife on the face of the earth that you have not sparked - Whenever they start the fire of strife, Allah extinguished it. May Allah extinguish your light and your fires. But we, we are the men whom Allah has chosen, and wanted, and made us strong, so as to pluck...

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