'Iraq seeks to take Islamic State offline'

Reuters, To silence propaganda, Iraq seeks to take Islamic State offline " Iraq is trying to persuade satellite firms to halt Internet services in areas under Islamic State's rule, seeking to deal a major blow to the group's potent propaganda machine which relies heavily on social media to inspire its followers to wage jihad."

'The Cross is ISIS' main enemy; today no trace of a Cross can be seen in Mosul'

This story provides further proof � if any is still needed � of the Islamic religious roots and motivations of the Islamic State. 

The Cross is symbolic of Islam's main enemy: Christianity. Under the terms of the dhimma contract and the Pact of Omar, Christians may not display the Cross openly, either on their buildings or on their person. 

The breaking of crosses is a potent symbol of Islam's global supremacy in the end times. Muhammad prophesied that when Isa (the Muslim Jesus) returns, he will  "fight the people for the cause of Islam. He will break the cross, kill the swine and abolish jizya� and establish the rule of Allah throughout the world (Hadith from Sunan Abu Dawud, Book of Battles, 37:4310).

Demolition of churches and crosses, or converting churches into mosques, is a classic trait of Islam's treatment of Christians wherever it has conquered for fourteen centuries now. In our days, Muslims are even taking to breaking crosses in cemeteries, as seen in the infamous YouTube videos of 2012.

In Syracuse NY we recently saw the "breaking of the crosses" on a huge scale; a venerable Roman Catholic church was converted into a mosque, the crosses removed the spires, and 10,000 crosses in the interior covered over in a hugely symbolic victory for Islam.

See also Raymond Ibrahim's recent article, 'Islamic Hate for the Christian Cross', and my own piece 'Islam's Hatred of Holy Icons � and what that means for Persecuted Eastern Christians'. 

"The Cross is ISIS' main enemy; today no trace of a Cross can be seen in Mosul"

Pravoslavie, September 26, 2015:

(Mosul, September 23, 2015) A war is currently being waged against Christianity on the territory of the Biblical city of Nineveh, which is currently under control of the �Islamic State� militants: according to eyewitnesses� evidence, the fanatics are trying their best to eliminate the very memory of the Christian presence in Mosul, reports Ankawa news agency.

In his report, sent to the Ankawa agency�s staff writer Yunus Zanoun, the journalist A.S. from Mosul gave information about ISIS�s intention to wipe out all the Christian symbols from Nineveh, and that they are working hard in order to achieve this ambition. �The cross is ISIS�s main enemy; that is why today no traces of crosses can be seen in Mosul,� A.S. noted.

According to the journalist, the terrorists threw down all the crosses from domes of Mosul churches within two weeks after seizing city; they organized raids on houses of Christian residents of Mosul to destroy all the crosses and icons in the city.

�The dwellings were ravaged with great fury � and the vestiges of this hatred for Christianity can be seen here to this day� As for churches and monasteries, whole teams are involved in the job of dynamiting or partially demolishing their buildings. For example, large-scale work at the St. George�s Monastery in the al-Arabi neighborhood of Mosul was carried out to dismantle the iron crosses from the fencing, while the St. Ephraim�s Monastery in the ash-Shurta neighborhood was deliberately �enlarged��this was done to conceal a huge cross carved on the front of the monastery�s main church,� A.S. related.

At the same time, the Alsumaria.tv portal reported that �Islamic State� militants exploded a number of Christian homes in the Karakush district. There is still no information on the number of victims or the extent of damage to the residents� property.

Archbishops From Middle East Charge Discrimination Against Christians

"Since October 2014, 906 Muslim refugees from Syria were granted U.S. visas, while only 28 of Syria�s estimated 700,000 Christian refugees were provided with visas."

This further supports Raymond Ibrahim's important article, Obama Throws Christian Refugees to Lions.

by Warren Mass, The New American � September 16, 2015

Two archbishops from the Middle East have complained that the United States unfairly discriminates against Christians from their region when they apply for U.S. visas.

Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, Iraq, and Melkite Archbishop Jean-Cl�ment Jeanbart of Aleppo, Syria, aired their grievances at an August 4 press conference at the 2015 Knights of Columbus Convention in Philadelphia.

The archbishops cited federal data indicating that, since October 2014, 906 Muslim refugees from Syria were granted U.S. visas, while only 28 of Syria�s estimated 700,000 Christian refugees were provided with visas. They said that even considering that Christians account for just 10 percent of the population of Syria, the number of visas granted to Christians seems widely disproportional.

Although the U.S. government does not track the religious affiliation of immigrants, Christianity Today nevertheless reported that the bishops gathered their information �from official U.S. government sources.� 

Archbishop Warda stated during the press conference:

Our people are asking these questions: how come we apply for the American visa and are denied? 

This is a clear case of persecution. 

They�re being denied visas while others who have participated (in the violence) or at least were silent can go [to America].

The Catholic News Agency reported that Archbishops Warda and Jeanbart would like to see their flocks stay and help rebuild the Christian populations in the Middle East, where Christians have lived since the first decades after Jesus' death. However, they realize they cannot ask people to remain in places where they are endangered by the terrorism and violence.

�We would like our people to stay, we would like [that], but emigration is a personal decision; we cannot encourage [it], but we cannot stop it,� Warda said.

The Catholic News Service report noted:

Iraq alone has seen a massive emigration of Christians. The Christian population has plummeted to 300,000, down from about 1.5 million before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of the country. 

The report reinforces what former Representative Ron Paul noted recently: �The reason so many are fleeing places like Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq is that US and European interventionist foreign policy has left these countries destabilized with no hopes of economic recovery.�

If the turmoil in Iraq and Syria aggravated by our interventionism were not so bad, the question of whom to grant or not grant immigration visas to would be a moot point.  These Middle Eastern people of both Christian and Muslim beliefs would most likely prefer to remain in their homelands.

Related:

• Obama and Co. Middle East Policies Aiding Genocide of Christians
• Obama-backed Syrian Rebels �Ethnic Cleansing� Christians
• Christian Martyrdom Doubled in 2013, Persecution Growing

Obama Throws Christian Refugees to Lions

The anti-Constantine's support for Muslim genocide against Christians is undeniable. 

by Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone Institute � September 25, 2015

Members of California�s Iraqi Christian community and their supporters protest the months-long detention of Iraqi Christian asylum-seekers at the Otay Mesa detention center.

The fate of those Iraqi Christians who had fled from the Islamic State only to be incarcerated in the United States has finally been decided by the Obama administration: they are to be thrown back to the lions, where they will likely be persecuted if not slaughtered like so many Iraqi Christians before them.

Fifteen of the 27 Iraqi Christians that have been held at a detention center in Otay Mesa, California, for approximately six months, are set to be deported in the coming weeks. Some have already been deported and others are being charged with immigration fraud.

Many of the Iraqi Christian community in San Diego�including U.S. citizen family members vouching for the refugees�had hopes that they would eventually be released.  Mark Arabo, a spokesman for the Chaldean community, had argued that �They�ve escaped hell [IS]. Let�s allow them to reunite with their families.�  One of the detained women had begged to see her ailing mother before she died.  The mother died before they could reunite, and now the daughter is to be deported, possibly back to the hell of the Islamic State.

Why are Christian minorities, who are the most to suffer from the chaos engulfing the Middle East, the least wanted in the United States?

The answer is that the Obama administration defines refugees as people �persecuted by their government.�  In other words, the only �real� refugees are those made so due to the actions of Bashar Assad.  As for those who are being raped, slaughtered, and enslaved based on their religious identity by so-called �rebel� forces fighting Assad�including the Islamic State�their status as refugees is evidently considered dubious at best.

As Abraham H. Miller argues in �No room in America for Christian refugees�:  �What difference does it make which army imperils the lives of innocent Christians?  Christians are still be[ing] slaughtered for being Christian, and their government is incapable of protecting them. Does some group have to come along�as Jewish groups did during the Holocaust�and sardonically guarantee that these are real human beings?�

In fact, from the start of Western meddling in the Mideast in the context of the �Arab Spring,� Christians were demonized for being supportive of secular strongmen like Assad.   In a June 4, 2012 article discussing the turmoil in Egypt and Syria, the Independent�s Robert Fisk scoffed at how the Egyptian presidential candidate �Ahmed Shafiq, the Mubarak loyalist, [and rival to the Muslim Brotherhood�s Morsi] has the support of the Christian Copts, and Assad has the support of the Syrian Christians. The Christians support the dictators. Not much of a line, is it?�

More than three years later, the Western-supported �Arab Spring� proved an abysmal failure and the same Christian minorities that Fisk took to task were, as expected, persecuted in ways unprecedented in the modern era.

Even without defining refugees as people �persecuted by their government,� the Obama administration never seems to miss an opportunity to display its bias for Muslims against Christians.  The U.S. State Dept. is in the habit of inviting scores of Muslim representatives but denying visas to solitary Christian representatives.  While habitually ignoring the slaughter of Nigerian Christians at the hands of Boko Haram, the administration called for the �human rights� of the jihadi murderers.  And when persecuted Copts planned on joining the anti-Muslim Brotherhood revolution, Obama said no.  Then there is the fact that every Arab nation the Obama administration has meddled in�especially Libya and Syria�has seen a dramatic nosedive in the human rights of Christian minorities.

The Obama administration�s bias is evident even regarding to the Iraqi Christians� illegal crossing of the U.S.-Mexico border, the occasion on which they were arrested. WND correctly observes: �At the same time the Obama administration [is] deporting Christians, it has over the years allowed in hundreds of Muslim migrants from Africa and the Middle East who crossed the Southern border the same way the Chaldeans did.�

Meanwhile, as the Obama administration nitpicks at the definition of refugee and uses it against severely persecuted Christian minorities, it turns out that four out of five migrants�or 80 percent�are not even from Syria.

And while Christian minorities pose little threat to the United States�indeed, they actually bring benefits to U.S. security�Muslims all around the U.S. are supporting the Islamic State and Muslim clerics are relying on the refugee influx to conquer Western nations, in the Islamic tradition of Hijra, or jihad by emigration.

As Koran 4:100 puts it: �And whoever emigrates for the cause of Allah will find on the earth many locations and abundance. And whoever leaves his home as an emigrant to Allah and His Messenger and then death overtakes him�his reward has already become incumbent upon Allah.�

In Islamic usage, the �cause of Allah� is synonymous with jihad to empower and enforce Allah�s laws on earth, or Sharia.  In this context, immigrating into Western lands is a win-win for Muslims: if they die in the process somehow, paradise is theirs; if they don�t, the �locations and abundance� of the West are theirs.

All the while, true Christian refugees, fleeing the same hostile Muslim forces being allowed to enter Europe and America by the thousands, are thrown back to the lions by the Obama administration.

Pressure Grows to Declare War Against Christians a Genocide

"Christianity in the Middle East is shattered," Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, Nebraska Republican, told the IDC [In Defense of Christians] conference on Sept. 9. "The ancient faith tradition lies beaten, broken and dying. Yet Christians in Iraq and Syria are hanging on in the face of the Islamic State's barbarous onslaught. This is genocide."

As I repeatedly strive to emphasize, "genocide" is a secular term, and while it is accurate in a forensic way, for us, as Orthodox Christians, we must school ourselves to speak of this as a "New Age of Martyrdom." 

Our brothers and sisters in Iraq, Syria and the Middle East � as well as in Egypt and throughout North and Central Africa, as well as in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia and throughout the entire Islamic world � are ascending a real Golgotha. Christianity is being crucified anew, and the evil is increasing in vast waves of persecution. Europe and North America are next. 

We must wake up, stand with our suffering brothers and sisters, pray for them, honor them as confessors and martyrs, and prepare ourselves for the trials to come through diligently living and practicing our most holy faith.

And, we must clearly state that this "New Age of Martyrdom," this "genocide," is the direct result of devout Muslims following the commands in the Qur'an, imitating Muhammad's example as extolled in the ahadith and the Sira, and applying the doctrines of Islamic jurisprudence. It is not just the Islamic State waging war against and persecuting Christians. It is also ordinary Muslims � neighbors of Christians � who are taking their religion more seriously and acting according to its commands. 

Islam itself is the direct cause of the first genocide of the 21st century, this "New Age of Martyrdom."

Pressure Grows to Declare War Against Christians a Genocide

by Douglas Burton, Washington Times via AINA, September 23, 2015:

Memorial to martyrs killed in 2010 church bombing; Baghdad, Iraq.

Human rights activists see it. Foreign leaders see it. And more than 80 members of the U.S. Congress see it. Together, they are pressuring the leader of the free world to declare there is a Christian genocide going on in the Middle East.

Their campaign -- which was discussed at a Capitol Hill conference earlier this month hosted by the two-year-old In Defense of Christians nonprofit -- has an influential ally on its side.

Pope Francis, making his first visit to the United States on Wednesday, has noted the number of Christians being martyred today exceeds the number martyred during the days of the Roman Empire.

In fact, the sheer numbers of Christians murdered and tortured every year in a dozen countries in the developing world is only getting worse, thanks to the relentless campaign of the ISIS and al-Qaeda terror groups.

For example, in 2014, 2,000 Christians were murdered in Iraq alone, which is the number cited by historian Edward Gibbon as the total number of Christian martyrs in the first three centuries of Christianity.

In Iraq, where Christian churches were planted 1,800 years ago, Christianity has been wiped out except for 200,000 refugees sheltering in Kurdistan and a few in Baghdad. Their language, Aramaic; their homeland, the Nineveh Plain; and their calamity are Biblical in scale. Hundreds have been publicly tortured and executed in Mosul while women and children have suffered severe levels of sexual violence since the Islamic State took control in 2014.

"Christianity in the Middle East is shattered," Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, Nebraska Republican, told the IDC conference on Sept. 9. "The ancient faith tradition lies beaten, broken and dying. Yet Christians in Iraq and Syria are hanging on in the face of the Islamic State's barbarous onslaught. This is genocide."

A year after Congress authorized a special envoy to expedite the humanitarian relief of persecuted minorities in Iraq, the Obama administration has finally chosen a person to fill the spot. Knox Thames has been named the State Department's special adviser for religious minorities in the Near East (NEA) and South and Central Asia (SCA). His appointment was announced Sept. 16 by Ambassador David Saperstein, ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. The Christian refugees in Irbil hope that Mr. Thames hits the ground running.

"The appointment represents a positive step toward strengthening the U.S. response to religious persecution in the Middle East," says Delia Kashat, who works for the Nineveh Council of America, a newly established office that raises awareness on the plight of threatened Iraqi minorities, including the Yazidis.

"History is repeating itself," she says of the latest crisis that reminds many refugees of the massacre of 3,000 Assyrian Christians in August 1933 and the Armenian genocide of 1915 that also claimed the lives of many Assyrian Christians.

"Having suffered multiple genocides over time, the true natives of Iraq and Syria serve as the equilibrium and peacemakers of the country," she says. Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians in all provinces have suffered kidnappings, torture and brutal attacks, and massive exodus has followed the ascendance of the Islamic State.

Ms. Kashat grew up in the Detroit metro area, home to around 150,000 Chaldean Christian immigrants, but her parents were born in the Nineveh Plain and fled Iraq in 1973. "They came to this country because this is where is they could freely live and practice their faith," she says.

Whether they call themselves Assyrian or Chaldean, Catholic or Orthodox, Iraqi Christians belong to a common ethnicity and claim descent from the ancient peoples who established Assyria 4,500 years ago.

Currently there are 14 Christian parties seeking seats in the Kurdish regional parliament, and each is tied to a particular church, according to Louay Mikhael, a Chaldean Christian rom Dohuk, who arrived in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and child only in April.

Mr. Mikhael represents the Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council of the Kurdish Regional Government (CSA Popular Council), which will open its lobbying office in Washington in the coming weeks. Both Ms. Kashat and Mr. Mikhael are working in Washington to raise awareness on the issues affecting ethnic-religious minority populations.

After the surge of the Islamic State in the summer of 2014 approximately 130,000 people -- virtually the entire population of Christians remaining in the Nineveh Plain near Mosul -- have either fled the country or taken shelter in Kurdish cities.

"On Aug. 6 when ISIS attacked Qaroquosh, approximately 55 miles from Irbil, we had 60,000 people arriving in one day," said Rev. Douglas Bezi, the Chaldean Catholic priest who manages a refugee center in the Christian suburb of Ainkawa.

The city of Irbil and its suburbs have nearly 100,000 Chaldean Catholic refugees sheltering in rented apartments, unfinished buildings or steel shipping containers. "When they arrived, I divided them into two groups, those who wanted to return in one group and those who wanted to leave the country," Father Bezi said. "But after a year, no one wants to return to the Nineveh Plain. More than 60 percent of my people are traumatized, and wake up every day demoralized."

Iraqi Christian advocates are united in their priorities for the United States: They want direct humanitarian assistance and international condemnation of the abuses these vulnerable groups face.

A Congressional resolution introduced Sept. 9 by Mr. Fortenberry and Rep. Anna Eshoo, California Democrat, calls on signers of the United Nations' Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, signed in 1948, to be "reminded of their legal obligations" under the agreement.

It also says those who have forced the migration of religious communities from their ancestral homelands -- especially the Nineveh Plain, the historic home of Yazidis -- be "tracked, sanctioned, arrested, prosecuted and punished."

"Christianity is running the risk of becoming extinct in the region it was born. What is happening to the Christian community in Iraq will happen to all of Christianity in the Middle East if we don't take action," Ms. Kashat said.

Douglas Burton, a former U.S. State Department official in Kirkuk, Iraq, is a former opinion editor of Insight on the News.

Iraqi priest: �There�s no such thing as moderate Islam�ISIS represents Islam one hundred percent�

�Wake up! The cancer is at your door. They will destroy you. We, the Christians of the Middle East are the only group that has seen the face of evil: Islam... 

�Please, if there�s anyone who still thinks ISIS doesn�t represent Islam, know that they are wrong. ISIS represents Islam one hundred percent.�

� Fr. Douglas al-Bazi, Iraqi Catholic Priest and Confessor for Christ,

captured and tortured by Muslim jihadists in 2006.

Let us all try to do something � whatever we can � in the face of the tsunami of evil wiping away our Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East, Egypt and North Africa, Pakistan, Indonesia, throughout the entire Islamic world. Let us pray for them, even as we start to heed the warnings and cries of the new confessors and martyrs like Fr Douglas al-Bazi, who daily follow Christ to their Golgotha, bearing their unimaginable cross!

Speaking in 1980, Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) of Platina had this to say about Golgotha:

It is a law of the spiritual life that where there is Golgotha�if it is genuine suffering for Christ�there will be resurrection. This resurrection first of all occurs in human hearts, and we do not need to be too concerned what outward form it might take by God�s will... 

Our inward, spiritual resurrection is what we should be striving for, and the events in Russia give us hope that there will yet be a resurrection of true, suffering Christianity, not only in Russia, but wherever hearts have not become entirely frozen. But we must be ready for the suffering that must precede this...

Are we in the West ready for this? Golgotha does not mean the incidental sufferings we all go through in this life. It is something immense and deep, which cannot be relieved by taking an aspirin or going to a movie. It is what Russia has gone through and is now trying to communicate to us. Let us not be deaf to this message. By the prayers of all the New Martyrs, may God give us the strength to endure the trials coming upon us and to find in them the resurrection of our souls.

� Fr. Seraphim Rose, The Orthodox Revival in Russia as an Inspiration for American Orthodoxy, The Orthodox Word #138, 1988, p. 51. (From a talk given in 1980.)

  

Obviously, what Fr Seraphim was speaking of regarding the New Martyrs of Russia in the 20th century under Communism is equally true about the New Martyrs of the 21st century under Islam. Let us heed his prophetic voice and rouse ourselves to zeal and perseverance in following our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ!

��There�s No Such Thing as Moderate Islam�: An Iraqi Priest Describes the Christian Genocide,� by Matteo Matzuzzi, Il Foglio, August 26, 2015 (translated by Francesca Romana, Rorate Caeli), courtesy of Jihad Watch:

Rome. �Please, if there�s anyone who still thinks ISIS doesn�t represent Islam, know that they are wrong. ISIS represents Islam one hundred percent.� Father Douglas al Bazi, an Iraqi Catholic parish priest in Erbil, raised his voice during an intervention at the Meeting in Rimini, with a choice of words � in a provocative way and in hard tones � that few had ventured use so far.

He carries on his own body the scars of the torture he underwent nine years ago, when a band of Jihadists kidnapped him for nine days, keeping him in chains and blindfolds along with a broken nose from being kneed: �For the first four days they didn�t even give me anything to drink. They would walk past me saying �Father, do you want some water?� All day long they would listen to the reading of the Koran to let the neighbours hear what good believers they were.��

Father Douglas Al Bazi is in charge of two refugee shelters for Christians who survived the advance of the black horde � not far from Ankawa. After the marking of houses with the �n� of the Nazarene plus the Christians displaced on the Nineveh plain, a year ago, �from morning to night we receive thousands of refugees� and the exodus continues. �I�m proud to be an Iraqi, I love my country. But my country is not proud that I�m part of it. What is happening to my people is nothing other than genocide. I beg you: do not call it a conflict. It�s genocide�, said the priest, who doesn�t want to hear anything about �moderate Islam�: 

�When Islam lives amidst you, the situation might appear acceptable. But when one lives amidst Muslims, everything becomes impossible. I�m not here to instigate you to hate Islam. I was born amid Muslims and I have more friends among them than I have with Christians. But people change and if we go to my country, no-one will be able to distinguish the light from the darkness. There are those who say: 'but I have lots of Muslim friends who are very nice'. Yes, certainly! They are nice over here! Over there the situation is very different!�

A situation in which regard the vice-President of the French Conference for Imams also had some tough words to say. Hocine Drouiche, also the Imam of Nimes, intervened last July at the European Parliament: �In the world, Christians are being persecuted, hunted down, deprived of work, imprisoned, tortured and murdered. All means are being used to force them to deny their faith, including the ritual of collective rape, considered in some states a form of penal sanction. Owning a Bible has become a crime, religious worship is prohibited and there has been a return to the times of Masses in the caves and the first martyrs�. And the fault, Drouiche had added in a discourse which had not been highlighted very much by the European media�, is contemporary Islam�, which is much closer �to sectarianism rather than a universal, open religion�.

�I believe in the end they will destroy us�

Father al Bazi�s account is of one who runs the risk of being murdered on the street every day: We never know if coming out of the church we�ll be able to go into it again alive. In Baghdad they had the church explode right in front of me. They shot me on the legs with a AK-47, a type of Kalashnikov, and probably sooner or later they�ll kill me�. Yet his faith is solid: �When they put me in chains, during my kidnapping, they tightened a big padlock on my wrists. On the chain there were ten extra rings, which I used to recite the Rosary. I have never prayed it so earnestly as I did in that situation�. �I � added Father Douglas � don�t implore your help. I�m not frightened just as my people aren�t frightened either. I believe they�ll destroy us in the end. But I also believe that we will have the last word. Jesus told us that we need to carry our own crosses, and that is what we in the Middle East are doing. Yet the most important thing is not the carrying of the cross, but following it. And following it means accepting, challenging and committing oneself right to the very end�.

�We need to have patience and carry the cross each day, but we also must react�, said Father Ibrahim Alsabagh, parish priest in Aleppo, echoing him, and reported how the city is now �divided in tens of parts, each one of them in the hands of a different group of Jihadists. Our Church of St. Francis is sixty metres from the firing line. They have already hit many churches, we don�t know when it will be our turn�. Here is why Father Douglas, at the end of his intervention, launched a warning to the feeble West:

�Wake up! The cancer is at your door. They will destroy you. We, the Christians of the Middle East are the only group that has seen the face of evil: Islam��.

Islamic State announces plan to transform Mosul church into mosque

"Islamic State militants posted notices throughout the city announcing that the Syrian Orthodox Church of St. Ephrem, which they emptied last fall, will reopen soon as the 'mosque of the mujahideen' or jihad fighters."

As has happened throughout the Middle East for fourteen centuries following every successive Muslim conquest, Christian churches are either destroyed, or converted into mosques.

The removal of the cross last July from the Syrian Orthodox Church of St. Ephrem is standard Islamic practice, as the Christian symbol is not permitted in Muslim lands. The Islamic State is not alone in this practice; the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly called for the destruction of all churches in the Arabian Peninsula (see here and here), in accordance with Muhammad's command: �I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim� (Hadith from Sahih Muslim 19.4366).

Muhammad even prophesied that the prophet Isa (the Islamic name for Jesus) would return in the end times and break all the crosses (i.e., destroying all churches), abolishing Christianity, as cited in this apocalyptic hadith popular among devout Muslims:

Isa will �fight the people for the cause of Islam. He will break the cross, kill the swine and abolish jizya� and establish the rule of Allah throughout the world. (Hadith from Sunan Abu Dawud, Book of Battles, 37:4310)

Mosul is a sign of the Middle East of the 21st century, the final stage of religious cleansing conducted by the followers of Muhammad since the early 7th century.

Islamic militants announce plan to transform Mosul church into mosque

by Laura Ieraci, CNS via Pravmir � June 8, 2015

According to Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Islamic State militants posted notices throughout the city announcing that the Syrian Orthodox Church of St. Ephrem, which they emptied last fall, will reopen soon as the �mosque of the mujahideen� or jihad fighters.

The news came just before the one-year anniversary of the capture of Mosul by Islamic State fighters June 10.

Fides said the militants� intention to convert the church into a mosque became clear when they removed the cross from the church�s dome, chose the adjacent buildings to house the headquarters of their �state council� last July, and emptied the church of its furnishings and put them on sale in November.

Mosul, located in northern Iraq, was once Iraq�s second-largest city with a significant Christian population. The city is now empty of Christians. Thousands have sought refuge in Irbil in Iraq�s semi-autonomous region, Kurdistan; an unknown number of Christians have been killed.

ISIS threatens ancient monastery filled with Christians

A 1,650-year-old monastery in northern Iraq, one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world, is in danger of falling to ISIS.

by Leo Hohmann � June 2, 2015

WND via Pravmir

St. Matthew�s Monastery is a 1,650-year-old structure built into the side of a mountain

on the Nineveh Plain of northern Iraq.

St. Matthew�s monastery, founded in A.D. 363, has survived the Ottoman and Persian Empires, Mongol invaders and Kurdish conquests. Today it�s threatened by ISIS. Only three monks remain.

It has served as a place of refuge for persecuted Christians and other religious minorities for centuries, but now its very existence is threatened.

Some of the earliest Christians sought safety there. And when Islamic hordes stormed the city of Mosul, just 20 miles away, last June, the monastery�s thick stone walls again became a safe haven.

Located about 20 miles north of Mosul, the monastery is in protected Kurdish territory but is just a little more than three miles from the front lines of battle.

�We can see the battles and the airstrikes from here in front of us, especially at night. The sky lights up at night, but we of course are not scared. God protects us,� Father Yousif Ibrahim, one of three monks who resides in the monastery, told USA Today. There are also six students living at St. Matthew�s.

Before Iraq fell into chaos, the monastery was home to thousands of nuns, priests and students with the Syriac Orthodox Church. The ancient church traces its founding back to the time of Christ. Some of its earliest founders may have personally known Jesus Christ. They still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus.

It houses one of the most ancient Christian libraries in the region. Many of the oldest manuscripts have been removed and taken to Kurdish-controlled areas.

Christian refugees running out of places to hide

More than 125,000 Christians have been forced from their homes over the past 12 months. They now live as refugees, most of them in the semi-autonomous state of Kurdistan.

ISIS has previously vowed to destroy all Christian historical sites in the areas that fall under its control. In March, it destroyed the ancient Christian Mar Behnam Monastery in the predominantly Christian town of Qaraqosh in northern Iraq.

The jihadists have desecrated Christian cemeteries, seized Christian girls for sex slaves and killed other children in front of their parents� eyes.

ISIS destroyed Jonah�s tomb in Mosul in July and destroyed countless Assyrian artifacts in Nimrod in March. The jihadist organization believes Christian relics represent a religion of polytheistic infidels and are an affront to Islam.

St. Matthew�s is built like a fortress into the side of Mount Al-Faf. Kurdish soldiers pushed the ISIS fighters back last summer to about four miles from St. Matthew�s, but the monastery is again in danger of falling to the Islamic jihadists

On CBS� �60 Minutes� in March, Father Ibrahim told Lara Logan the worst part was the uncertainty.

�We don�t know exactly, but we are expecting the worst,� he told Logan.

Mosul has been completely emptied of its 10,000 Christians.

Nicodemus Sharaf, the archbishop, now lives as a refugee in Kurdish capital of Erbil along with 60,000 other Christian refugees.

Despite all of the Christian refugees in Iraq and Syria, most of the refugees being sent to the United States and other Western countries are Muslim. The United Nations selects and assigns almost all of the refugees.

When he left Mosul, Sharaf said ISIS fighters were already inside the city.

�I don�t have time to take anything. He told me you have five minutes. I took just five books; they are very old.�

Many even older were left. Christian relics dating to the first century B.C. fell into the hands of ISIS.

ISIS uses the Arabic letter �N� for Nazarene to mark the homes of Christians. When they use red paint to put the �N� on a home, the occupants can expect a visit soon by ISIS fighters. They are given a choice: Convert, pay the Islamic head tax or die.

�Speak up. Of course there is good people in the Islam people. Not all are bad, I believe. But where is the good people? Where is their voice? Nothing!� Archbishop Sharaf said. �Where is their voice? Few! Few!

�They lost our dignity here. I�m sorry to say that. We don�t have dignity in our country, in our land.�

Obama�s airstrikes offer little hope

President Obama�s airstrikes are seen as pinpricks on ISIS.

Archbishop Bashar Warda, who leads the flock of the Chaldean Catholics in Erbil, told Logan ISIS �is a cancer� that needs to be defeated.

Logan asked if that meant militarily.

�Please God,� he said. �It�s a disease, so sometimes you take some hard measures, unfortunate measures, to remove this cancer.�

In its heyday, St. Matthew�s monastery was home to 7,000 monks. The area surrounding the complex was named Al-Faf, meaning �the thousands,� in homage to the legion of monks who worshiped, taught and studied on its steep dry slopes, USA Today reported. �But just like the Christian population in Iraq, that number has dwindled dramatically over the years.�

Islamic jihadist groups have systematically targeted Christians over the past century, and ISIS is only a continuation of that long history, Ibrahim told the newspaper. Despite holding fort at the monastery, Ibrahim says St. Matthew�s, and Christianity in Iraq, are living on borrowed time.

Iraq�s Christians will eventually abandon the nation, Ibrahim said, leaving their history behind. Only then will he consider fleeing the war-torn country himself.

�The shepherd cannot leave his sheep,� he told USA Today.

�Saint Matthew ended up here because he was fleeing persecution, but persecution follows us,� Sahar Karaikos, one of the six students still at St. Matthews, told the newspaper. �We can�t run from it, we have to stand in front of our history.�

Islamic State captures Ramadi, threatens Baghdad, expands in North Africa

ISIS celebrates capture of Ramadi with orgy of bloodshed, 25,000 flee their homes.

Islamic State forces now only 60 miles from Baghdad.

Related:

• Panicking Iraqi Troops Abandon U.S. Tanks as They Flee from ISIS
• Gates: �We Don�t Have a Strategy At All� In Middle East
• Kerry: Don�t worry about fall of Ramadi, �Daesh has been driven back�
• Obama admin says �file footage of ISIL convoys operating in broad daylight� is �inaccurate� days before huge ISIL convoy in Ramadi

Iraq braced for the Battle of Baghdad: Chilling images show ISIS victory parade after fanatics seize key city of Ramadi � just 60 miles from the capital � in an orgy of violence and beheadings

by Jay Akbar, Steph Cockroft, Simon Tomlinson and Julian Robinson

MailOnline � May 19, 2015 (h/t Jihad Watch)

ISIS victory parade in Ramadi

ISIS militants have held a twisted victory parade after taking the key city of Ramadi in an orgy of violence and beheadings � and the extremists could march on the Iraqi capital Baghdad within the next month.

Mutilated bodies scatter the streets of the �Gateway of Baghdad�, where Islamic State slaughtered around 500 and forced nearly 25,000 to flee their homes over the last few days.

Now ISIS has released images of militants celebrating, children wielding automatic weapons and a fleet of pick-up trucks carrying its jubilant fighters through the blood-stained streets of Ramadi.

Shi�ite fighters have already launched a counter-offensive to recapture the city, but these kinds of tactics play straight into Islamic State�s grand plan to spark all-out war in the region, according to the Middle East director of counter-terrorism think-tank RUSI.

Islamic State militants are already marching east towards the Habbaniya army base � around 20 miles east of Ramadi � where a column of 3,000 Shi�ite paramilitaries are amassing, witnesses and a military officer has said.

And if ISIS manage to reach Baghdad, it would be �utter carnage�, Professor Gareth Stansfield told MailOnline.

He said: �If ISIS turn up in great numbers in Baghdad, it will be an absolute slaughter between Sunni�s [sic] and Shia�s [sic] there.

�They [ISIS] are now having so many successes, and moving so quickly, that Baghdad is under very real threat from ISIS forces outside Baghdad and also the ISIS terror cells inside Baghdad as well...

Continue reading...

ISLAMIC STATE STRONGHOLD GROWS IN NORTH AFRICA WITH ALLEGIANCE OF TUNISIAN MUJAHIDIN

by Thomas D. Williams, PhD, Breitbart News � May 19, 2015

As ISIS influence increases daily in the North African nation of Libya, it has also succeeded in penetrating the ranks of Islamists in neighboring Tunisia, securing an oath of fealty from the Mujahidin of Kairouan.

According to reports, the Mujahidin have released an audio message addressed to the ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi containing a sworn oath of allegiance.

The nine-minute audio message was disseminated primarily through social networks and was still able to be heard in the original language on the net on Tuesday.

The new pact with Tunisian Islamists comes just a week after the Algerian group al-Mourabitoun allegedly also swore its allegiance to the Islamic State. Al-Mourabitoun militias have reportedly been active in the fighting in Libya.

The Mauritanian news source Alakhbar cited a recording it had received from a spokesman for al-Mourabitoun in which a speaker calling himself Adnan Abu Waleed al-Sahrawi asserted that al-Mourabitoun had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State�s self-proclaimed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and urged other jihadi groups to do likewise. A co-founder of al-Mourabitoun, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, later denied reports that the jihadist group has shifted its allegiance to the Islamic State from al-Qaeda.

Analysts suggest that the new Islamic State allies in Tunisia have been recruited to assist in galvanizing ISIS� strategic base in Libya, rather than primarily to infiltrate Italy, which at only 96 miles away is the closest African state to Italy. The distance is so short, in fact, that less than a decade ago an Italian government agency proposed a project to build a tunnel under the Strait of Sicily connecting the two nations.

Just last month ISIS launched an appeal to Tunisian jihadists through a 3-minute video inviting them to join the fight in Libya.

The newly established European mission in Libya has ruled out sending ground troops to Libya, at least for the moment. According to Gianandrea Gaiani, editor-in-chief of Analisi Difesa, an Italian journal of geopolitical and military analysis, a European military presence on Libyan soil would represent a provocation that would summon all jihadists within hundreds of miles.

For the moment, the European intervention in Libya will be an exclusively naval mission. On the one hand it aims at stemming the urgent problem of human trafficking and terrorist infiltration, and on the other it seeks to better secure the southern Mediterranean, especially between Sicily and North Africa.

Orthodox Nun: �ISIS is Islam, Islam Is ISIS. Whoever Says Otherwise Is a Liar'

"Sister Hatune Dogan has witnessed the devastation of these ancient Christian communities. She's listened to survivors tell how Christians and Yazidi women are being sold into sex slavery."

Related:

• Sr. Hatune Foundation: Helping hands for the Poor and Needy
• Orthodox Christian Nun warns against Islam: "The reason for all this disaster is the Quran."

by Erick Stakelbeck, CBN News (w/video) � May 11, 2015

via Jihad Watch and The Religion of Peace

Sister Hatune with refugee children

WASHINGTON -- The Islamic terror group ISIS is leaving a trail of destruction across large parts of Syria and Iraq with a specific target in their crosshairs.

Hundreds of thousands of Christians have been displaced from their homes and countless others have been murdered or enslaved by the jihadist army, with no end in sight.

Sister Hatune Dogan has been on the ground and witnessed the devastation of these ancient Christian communities. She's listened to survivors tell how Christians and Yazidi women are being sold into sex slavery.

"They choose the most beautiful one, even if they have a small child, and they sell these women, these ladies to each other. They don't sell to another religion -- only Sunni Muslim," Dogan said.

"There have been 12,000 kidnapped at the hands of ISIS - Yazidi alone. What is going on there, what I was hearing, is the highest barbarism on earth in the history until today," she added.

Her foundation helps the poor and persecuted in 35 countries, providing them with food, clothing, medicine and shelter.

She travels constantly with a special focus in the Muslim world.

"I'm not coming here for a holiday. I'm coming here to bring a voice to the voiceless so that the world can hear their voice. They don't have a voice. I am the channel for them. That is my mission," Dogan declared.

Sister Dogan is no stranger to Islamic persecution. As a young girl, threats from local Muslims forced her family to leave their home in Turkey.

They relocated to Germany, where she operates her foundation and sounds the alarm about the gathering Islamic storm.

"The mission of (Abu Bakr) Baghdadi, of ISIS, is to convert the world completely to the Islamic religion and bring them to Dar Al Salaam, as they call it. And Islam is not peace, please. Whoever says ISIS has no connection to Islam or something like this is, he's a liar. ISIS is Islam; Islam is ISIS," Dogan explained.

She's disappointed by what she calls a weak reaction from the West.

"We know that in Islam, there is no democracy. Islam and democracy are opposite, like black and white. And I hope America will understand. America today has the power that they can stop this disaster on the earth, with other Western countries," she argued.

As for Sister Dogan, she says she'll keep calling attention to the plight of followers of Jesus around the world whether the West wants to hear it or not.

What Will It Take to Return Christians to Their Homeland in Iraq?

"Retaking the territories would be complicated, to say the least, according to religious freedom advocate Nina Shea and others."

by John Burger, Aleteia via AINA
May 5, 2015

Some of the many Iraqi churches destroyed by the Islamic State and other Muslim groups.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry has announced the creation of a joint task force to start military operations aimed at freeing Mosul and Nineveh province, currently in the hands of the Islamic State group, according to Fides news agency.

Such a move would have great implications for the tens of thousands of Christians who were forced out of their homes in northern Iraq last summer, as ISIS swooped in and gave them the ultimatum of converting to Islam, paying an exorbitant protection fee, leaving or facing the sword.

But retaking the territories would be complicated, to say the least, according to religious freedom advocate Nina Shea and others.

Fides reported that the joint task force will involve the military apparatus of Baghdad and the autonomous region of Kurdistan. The creation of the body was sanctioned during a summit meeting in Erbil which was attended by the defense ministers of the Interior and those of the two governments. The Iraqi media also reported that the US ambassador in Iraq, Stuart E. Jones, took part in the meeting.

In statements reported by the national press, Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi ensured that Iraq will commit its army in the liberation of the province of Nineveh, as it did for the region of Tikrit. He asked the people of Nineveh to take part in the military operations against the militias of the Islamic State in order to be able to allow civilians to return to their homes.

"Whether this is going to happen or not is a good question because the Church is asking," said Shea in an interview. She directs the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute. "It's important that [international] powers understand that the Christians were one of main victims of the ISIS takeover of Mosul, that their churches were destroyed and that all their members were driven out under a convert-or-die policy, and that Mosul really is critical strategically for the entire Nineveh Plain."

The Islamic State is continuing to rule with an iron fist in Mosul. The group's militants reportedly killed 300 Yazidi captives in the Tal Afar district west of Mosul, the BBC reported. And the radical Islamic group reportedly issued a decree ordering all men in the Iraqi city to grow beards on the grounds that the shaving of facial hair is forbidden under Shari'a law, said Radio Free Europe.

Retaking Mosul will not be a walk in the park. It's true that Iraq's military recently reclaimed the city of Tikrit from ISIS, but the hometown of Saddam Hussein is only about a third or a quarter of the size of Mosul, Shea noted. Even though half a million people left Mosul when ISIS moved in, to undertake a military operation in a city where 1 million people still reside is almost sure to create a humanitarian crisis.

"Of the people who remain, some of them are Salafis, who share the goals of ISIS," she said. "Some are Saddam Hussein's generals and officer corps, who have made a pact with ISIS and have invited them in. And some are people who adapt and benefited who may have something at stake now with the new order and hate the Shi'ites so much in Baghdad...that they may want to fight for ISIS' control.

"It could be a very bloody battle," she said.

In addition, if the operation were successful, Shea speculated that the 5,000 or so Christians who inhabited Mosul before last summer would find it difficult to return because their properties were taken over by their former neighbors.

"Those people will probably not be able to go back to Mosul because their homes will be occupied by someone else, and they also feel uncomfortable to say the least, insecure, with their former neighbors who did not protect them against ISIS, and some of whom may have made common cause with ISIS," she said.

But Mosul must be liberated first if there is to be any hope of Christians returning to their ancestral homes on the Nineveh Plain, as the city controls the water power and security of Nineveh, she noted.

"Will there be reconstruction aid for these towns and villages? And how will that reconstruction aid be distributed, because after the US surge in 2008 our reconstruction aid was distributed through the main power structures--the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shi'ites--and the Christians didn't get their fair share," she said. "So their villages did not get hooked up on the electric grid and they didn't get their roads and schools built and so forth."

Based on past performance of the Islamic State group, if ISIS is successfully pushed out of Mosul, the group could very well "pop up" in other places "and create terror and havoc," she said. "So we can expect a prolonged insurgency against those towns and villages in Nineveh Province. So there has to be continuing protection of the Christians in those villages and towns."

Meanwhile, Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda of Erbil, where most of the country's Christians have taken refuge, told international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need that it will at least be several months before the areas occupied by ISIS can be liberated.

"If the government were to want to free Mosul first, many Muslims would flee from the city to the countryside because of the fighting. And where would they go? They would probably go to the currently abandoned Christian settlements near Mosul. This would create further difficulties," he said. "On the other hand, if the government were to begin its operations on the Nineveh Plain, however, the Christian settlements could be seriously affected by the fighting."

Archbishop Warda was skeptical as to whether international protection of Christian territories could be realized once they had been liberated.

"It would be important, but many countries will think twice before sending troops into this tricky situation. It would need to be preceded by a reconciliation process in the affected areas so that the Muslim neighbors did not see an international force of this kind as a hostile presence. I therefore believe it more likely that we will rather go in the direction of a national guard," the prelate said.

According to Warda, the national guard would rely on local people, but be integrated into the Iraqi army. "We as a Church have made it clear from the outset that we are against a [separate] Christian militia. We suggest that our young people, if so inclined, join the Kurdish or Iraqi forces."

Restore Nineveh Now, a group that is assisting Assyrians and Yezidis to reclaim their land in northern Iraq, is "meeting with officials in Baghdad to see what part Assyrians might play," said Jeff Gardner, a spokesman for the group, which is affiliated with a start-up Christian militia called the Nineveh Plain Protection Units.

"When will it begin? Good question," he said. "The House recently entered a bill that would send money and weapons directly to the Kurds but the administration (and Shia Baghdad) oppose it."

CNN � Retired generals: Be afraid of ISIS

Blindsided: Did ISIS catch the U.S. by surprise?

By Michael Flynn, James Livingston and Michael Smith

Updated 10:22 PM ET, Sun April 26, 2015

Story highlights:

• Authors warn President Obama must be clear about radical Islam threat
• Al Qaeda still a looming threat, they say

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Medal of Honor recipient and retired Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston, USMC, and congressional counterterrorism adviser Michael S. Smith II are co-founders of the strategic advisory firm Kronos Advisory. The views expressed are solely the authors' own. 

Watch 'Blindsided: How ISIS shook the world', on CNN.

(CNN)  Be afraid -- be very afraid. This is the warning the world deserves to hear. Because the leader of the free world refuses to look with clear eyes at the chief security challenges of the 21st century: the fruits of radical Islam.

The results of the Obama White House's innovative efforts to make the world a better place can be accounted for in the ever-growing numbers of victims of radical Islam in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Not to mention here in the United States, Canada and Europe. Is it not a tragic irony that the Arab Spring-era policies of a Nobel Peace Prize recipient accommodated the transition of Syria into the world's newest jihad theater while leaving Libya a failed state and Yemen a failing state?

The Syrian jihad gave rise to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which now uses Syria as a rear operating base to support its jihad in Iraq, which could soon spill over into Jordan. Plus, Libya is now being used as a rear operating base by ISIS and other global jihadist elements striving to redraw the map of the Middle East, even as they plan attacks in Europe and North America.

Given the frightfully slow pace America's commander-in-chief is currently allowing our military and intelligence community to take action against both ISIS and its progenitor, al Qaeda, the picture of what's in store is clear: The body count will continue to grow in the places where these groups can generate buy-in for their agendas. And neither the United States nor our Western allies are immune to this cancer.

Academics who must say something new or different to garner interest in their work may describe the agendas of ISIS and al Qaeda as distinctly different. But the fact is they are not -- their agendas, which constitute the foremost threats to the global security environment today, are manifestations of radical Islam.

Of course, it's hardly a surprise President Barack Obama refuses to acknowledge all this in plain terms -- the president and his national security advisers have too often proven na�ve, with a dangerous habit of viewing the world not as it is, but as they hope it could be.

There is no shortage of examples that highlight the absence of sound foresight on the parts of the world's most powerful politician and his national security team.

Just take the National Strategy for Counterterrorism published by the White House in 2011. That document contained the assertion that, "Since the beginning of 2011, the transformative change sweeping North Africa and the Middle East -- along with the death of Osama bin Laden -- has further changed the nature of the terrorist threat, particularly as the relevance of al Qaeda and its ideology has been further diminished."

Yet, fast forward to January 2014 and America's top intelligence official, director of National Intelligence James Clapper, advised Congress that al Qaeda was no less capable of threatening the United States and our allies than a decade earlier.

Soon after Clapper acknowledged al Qaeda was not a band on the run, as President Obama had described the terrorist enterprise, a report by terrorism expert Seth Jones of the RAND Corporation highlighted yet another inconvenient truth for the White House: As restraints on freedom of expression of radical religious views vanished in places like Libya, Tunisia and Egypt during the Arab Spring, those states became fertile recruitment grounds for terrorist groups -- including al Qaeda and groups aligned with it.

According to data compiled by Jones, from 2010 through 2013, the number of Salafi jihadist groups increased by 58%. These groups are fueled by Salafiyya Jihadiyya, an ideology that not only informs the agenda of al Qaeda, but is the source code for the agenda of the al Qaeda offshoot ISIS.

Bin Laden's death 'didn't lift shadow'

Most recently, absent from the National Security Strategy produced by the Obama White House in February 2015 is any real meaningful discussion concerning threats posed by al Qaeda. Yes, Osama bin Laden was killed on President Obama's watch. But contrary to what the White House seemed to think in 2011, bin Laden's death has not lifted the shadow he casts over America's, or our allies' security.

Indeed, within days of our new National Security Strategy's publication date, in the seventh issue of ISIS's English-language magazine Dabiq, the group's leaders described their jihad as a continuation of the jihad charted by bin Laden, while accusing his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, of steering al Qaeda off the path of its former leader.

Meanwhile, Yemen -- home to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the al Qaeda branch that claimed credit for the January 2015 attack in Paris at the office of Charlie Hebdo -- has also become a failed state. AQAP is helmed by the second-highest-ranking official in al Qaeda writ large, and the Obama administration views it as the most dangerous component of al Qaeda's global network.

So it is interesting that, in the months before the Yemeni government was overthrown by Iran-backed rebels, President Obama described the U.S.-Yemen counterterrorism partnership as a shining example of success in the fight against al Qaeda -- interesting because the President did not do more to help that "partner" government remain in power. Once again, the president and his advisers appear to have either ignored or failed to recognize the trajectory of events in the Middle East.

What were they thinking? And how do they plan to combat AQAP now?

Despite what the White House wants the world to believe, a sober look at the security environment reveals the following key realities:

ISIS controls a large amount of territory in the Middle East, and the group is rapidly growing its ranks in places such as Libya and Afghanistan, while at the same time inspiring and plotting attacks in the West.

And, although ISIS is trying to "out al Qaeda" al Qaeda, resorting to attention winning stunts to boost its profile on television sets around the world, al Qaeda itself is no less of a threat to the United States and our allies today than it was in January 2014.

At the same time, the routine failures of President Obama and his advisers to understand the security environment, and to appropriately tailor America's national security posture in a manner demanded by it, foretells more disasters lie ahead.

Will Obama make the difficult decisions?

Not only Americans, but also our allies should be very, very afraid. Indeed, President Obama's refusal to simply call a problem like radical Islam by its name strongly suggests he is unwilling to make the difficult decisions that must be made today if we are to stand a chance of defeating radical Islamist groups.

History has shown the dangers that millions can be placed in if our leaders don't face down a looming threat by calling it what it is and putting our full weight behind efforts to vanquish it.

President Obama has the resources at his disposal to do just that. But if he wants to help define a future for the Middle East and North Africa in which fewer threats emanate from those regions, he must spend more time listening to talented professionals in our military and intelligence community versus the idealists and yes-men surrounding him at the White House. There is too much at stake in the near term to continue down the path of experimentation with Pollyannaish theories about how to attain this future that have actually rendered us less safe.

Indeed, President Obama should also pay closer attention to what representatives from Arab states are saying behind closed doors. Most of their bosses would love to be the claimants to the prize of defeating ISIS and al Qaeda.

However, all of them recognize that, unless we all want things to get a whole lot worse before they might get any better, the United States will have to deploy considerably more of our "kinetic" resources to put those victories in sight.

This does not mean a ground forces-intensive response is required from us at this time. But if the President thinks it prudent to wait on our Arab partners to do most of the heavy lifting, he could be guaranteeing this will be the case in the not-too-distant future.

Summit calls for a police force to defend the Middle East�s Christians

Calls for the creation of �safe havens� for Christians in Iraq and Syria, as well as the creation of an international police force capable of identifying and apprehending the authors of terrorist acts, surfaced at a recent summit of leaders of all Christian churches in the Middle East along with politicians, diplomats, and activists.

by Ines San Martin, Pravmir � May 5, 2015

Syrian church destroyed by Muslims

(ROME) On behalf of the region�s suffering minority groups, those leaders say it�s time to �get past the alarm� caused by the rise in anti-Christian violence and start taking concrete measures, warning that a Middle East with few Christians, or none at all, would lose its identity.

The appeal came from a late April conference on Christians in the Middle East held in Bari, Italy, and organized by the Community of Sant�Egidio, a Catholic lay movement focused on ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue as well as conflict resolution. It brought together prelates from all the major Christian denominations in the region, as well as political and diplomatic figures and activists for minority rights.

Sant�Egidio�s founder, Italian Catholic historian and former government minister Andrea Riccardi, voiced hope that a �Bari roundtable� may become a standing forum for discussing the situation facing Christians in the Middle East.

In terms of concrete action, Riccardi recalled a proposal he launched three years ago to carve out a �Safe Haven� for Christians in the Nineveh Plains, a region of Iraq north and east of the city of Mosul.

It�s an area with a heavy concentration of Christians, and Riccardi has suggested that an international force could secure the area to ensure that it doesn�t become the next ISIS target.

Approximately 30,000 Christians reportedly have since fled the Nineveh Plains for fear of falling into the hands of radical Islamists. According to recent news reports, Iraqi Christians are currently forming their own defense force in the Nineveh Plains, with some 3,000 men having volunteered for training.

Marco Impagliazzo, the president of Sant�Egidio, floated a different idea: the creation of an international police force capable of intervening in emergency situations when minority groups such as Christians are under assault.

As a model, Impagliazzo mentioned UNIFIL, a peacekeeping force under the Italian flag and the United Nations that is currently working in Lebanon.

Also at the Bari gathering, Gregory III, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, called for �an ecumenical initiative of all Churches, able to work out a peace plan to bring to the common table of the great powers.�

Argentinian Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, who heads the Vatican�s Congregation for Eastern Church, said the indifference and inaction regarding the �true and real dismantling� of the centuries-old coexistence of Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Middle East is �a scandal.�

Christians of the region �deserve our solidarity, our gratitude, and every possible support,� Sandri said.

Sandri�s comments came just ahead of a three-day visit to Iraq. Before leaving, he complained that �vested interests� and politics are being put before the lives of the people involved.

�We trust that from deep within their hearts each one of them, leaders and militants, can recognize their blindness � and commit to build rather than to destroy and annihilate,� he said.

British Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican�s foreign minister, was also among the participants in the summit in Bari. He said that a similar responsibility lies with religious leaders living outside of the region. He called on them to move their faithful to support persecuted minorities, both with prayer and concrete gestures of solidarity, because �Christians in the region feel alone or abandoned.�

Gallagher also called for mechanisms to encourage Muslim-majority countries to address the phenomenon of terrorism in a serious way, including reviewing the teaching delivered in their mosques and schools.

Echoing Pope Francis, Gallagher called for the promotion of peace through diplomacy and by stopping the arms trade.

�What has the path of violence produced other than further destruction, without solving the problems?� he asked.

Catholic cardinals and priests, Patriarchs of Orthodox and Ancient Oriental Churches, as well as politicians and several ambassadors to the Holy See, including the US, Russian, German and British top diplomats, were among those participating in the meeting.

The Christian population in both Iraq and Syria has been in freefall due to constant violence in recent years.

From an estimated 1.5 million Christians living in Iraq before the US invasion in 2003, today fewer than 400,000 remain, with an estimated 200,000 living as refugees in Erbil and Baghdad. The situation in Syria is similar. Before a civil war broke out four years ago, Syria�s 1.8 million Christians represented 10 percent of the total population. Today, at least 500,000 have fled.