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School Lessons in American Ally Include Jihad

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

There’s a simple reason why attacks on Christians in Pakistan, like the Sept. 22 incident when two Taliban suicide bombers blew up themselves – and 80 Christians – at a church in Peshawar, happen: The nation’s education system.

According to a new report from the Middle East Media Research Institute the textbooks used in public schools across Pakistan teach that killing Christians is a goal and martyrdom is to be sought.

The report by Tufail Ahmad, the director of the organization’s South Asia Studies Project, noted that Ahmad Marwat, a spokesman for Jundul Hafsa, commented about the attack on Christians.

Jundel Hafsa claimed credit for the deadly bombing of Christians at the 130-year-old All Saints church and Marwat explained, “They are the enemies of Islam; therefore we target them. We will continue our attacks on non-Muslims on Pakistan land.”

The MEMRI report explained, “In Pakistan, where Islamist groups are launching regular attacks against non-Muslim Pakistanis like Christians and Hindus as well as some sects of Muslims such as Shiites and Ahmadi Muslims, whom they do not consider to be real Muslims, the official and unofficial media, government leaders and religious scholars have legitimized hate against religious minorities, with the term ‘minority’ itself having come to be seen in a pejorative context.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Christians Under Threat in Syria as Islamist Extremists Gain Influence

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Photo Credit: Youssef Badawi/EPA

Photo Credit: Youssef Badawi/EPA

When radical Islamists tore down a cross and hoisted a black flag above a church in the northern Syrian city of Raqqah last week, their action underscored the increasingly hostile environment for the country’s Christians.

Although Syria is majority Sunni Muslim, it is one of the most religiously and ethnically diverse countries in the Middle East, home to Christians, Druze, and Shiite-offshoot Alawites and Ismailis. But the country’s conflict, now in its third year, is threatening that tapestry.

While the primary front in the war has pitted Sunni against Shiite, Christians are increasingly caught in the line of fire. The perception that they support the government — which is in many cases true — has long made them a target of rebel groups. Now, Christians say radical Islamist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an affiliate of al-Qaeda, are determined to drive them from their homes.

“The Christian community in Syria is stuck between two fires,” said Nadim Nassar, a Syrian from Latakia who is director of the Awareness Foundation, an interfaith charity based in Britain. “One fire is a corrupt regime, and everybody agrees there needs to be a change. And on the other hand, there’s a fragmented and diverse opposition on the ground who can’t control jihadist forces coming from outside the country.”

Syria is not the only place in the wider region where Christians are being targeted. Coptic churches in Egypt have been attacked, and Pakistan last week experienced the deadliest church bombing in the country’s history. The militants who attacked a mall in Nairobi last month singled out non-Muslims.

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Christians in the Crosshairs

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Photo Credit: Washington Post

Photo Credit: Washington Post

Hiding the Christian name on his ID with his thumb, Joshua Hakim approached the gunmen and showed them the plastic card. “They told me to go. Then an Indian man came forward, and they said, ‘What is the name of Muhammad’s mother?’ When he couldn’t answer they just shot him.”

That’s the way it went inside the Westgate Premier Shopping Mall in Nairobi last Saturday. If you said when asked that you were Muslim, you were let go. If you answered no, you stayed. And maybe died.

More than 60 patrons in that upscale mall in Kenya’s capital breathed their last that day, shot dead by Islamist militants from Somalia who call themselves al-Shabab. The massacre was not al-Shabab’s first attack on non-Muslims.

But why should we know much about the killing of Christians when news of Washington’s political food fights, the looming federal shutdown and the National Zoo’s new panda cub keep getting in the way?

Since 1999, more than 14,000 Nigerians have been killed in sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians, reports the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The militant group Boko Haram, which supports an extreme and violent interpretation of Islam, is behind most of the violence. It cites state and federal government action against Muslims, among other “reasons,” as justification for its strikes on churches.

Read more from this story HERE.

DHS Adviser to Persecuted Christians: You Incited Muslims

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

An adviser to the Department of Homeland Security has used his Twitter profile to defend the Muslim Brotherhood while accusing Egypt’s persecuted Christian minority of inciting against Islam.

Earlier this month, Mohamed Elibiary, who was appointed to the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council by then-secretary Janet Napolitano in 2010, tweeted that he was reappointed and even promoted.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism reported Elibiary’s tweets about Egypt’s Coptic Christians.

“For decade since 9/11 attack extremist American #Coptic activists have nurtured anti #Islam & anti #Muslim sentiments among AM RT wing,” Elibiary wrote.

Earlier, Elibiary attacked the U.S. Coptic community for its protests against a wave of Muslim attacks on their relatives in Egypt.

Read more from this story HERE.

Islamist War on Christians

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

I’m waiting. I am a Lebanese Christian, and I am waiting. Waiting for CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, or Time magazine to really tell the story. To finally run this headline: “War on Christians Being Waged by Islamists.”

I’m waiting for someone in the mainstream media to admit the facts.

Matt Lauer and NBC News made headlines when they declared there was a civil war in Iraq in 2006, putting them at odds with the narrative coming from the Bush White House.

Islamists are persecuting and murdering Christians all over the world. Where in the world are Matt Lauer and NBC News? Do they not want to be at odds with the narrative coming from the current occupants of the White House, which downplays the atrocities being perpetrated by Muslims against Christians? Or to be at odds with Muslim groups like CAIR, which might accuse NBC of some kind of bias?

It is not an accident, the persecution and mass murder of Christians by Muslims. It is not episodic. It is by design. It is part of a master plan to destroy any competing narrative about God. To bully, threaten, and intimidate Christians into submission, or mass evacuation.

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Al-Qaeda Vows to Slaughter Christians After U.S. ‘Liberates’ Syria

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Photo Credit: Front Page Mag

Photo Credit: Front Page Mag

While U.S. leaders continue pushing for war against the Syrian government, today “Al-Qaeda-linked rebels,”reports AP, “launched an assault on a regime-held Christian mountain village in the densely populated west of Syria and new clashes erupted near the capital, Damascus, on Wednesday… In the attack on the village of Maaloula, rebels commandeered a mountaintop hotel and nearby caves and shelled the community below, said a nun, speaking by phone from a convent in the village. She spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.”

Arabic news agency Al Hadath gives more information concerning this latest terror attack on Syria’s Christians…

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Sentenced to Death for a Sip of Water

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Photo Credit: NY Post

Photo Credit: NY Post

More and more people join the crowd as they push me towards the home of the village headman. I recognize the house — it’s the only one that has a garden with grass growing in it. They throw me to the ground. The village imam speaks to me: “I’ve been told you’ve insulted our Prophet. You know what happens to anyone who attacks the holy Prophet Mohammed. You can redeem yourself only by conversion or death.”

“I haven’t done anything! Please! I beg you! I’ve done nothing wrong!”

The qari with his long, well-combed beard, turns to Musarat and the three women who were there on the day of the falsa harvest.

“Did she speak ill of Muslims and our holy Prophet Mohammed?”

“Yes, she insulted them,” replies Musarat, and the others join in: “It’s true, she insulted our religion.”

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Egyptian Islamists Target Christian Churches in Wave of Apparently Coordinated Attacks

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Photo Credit: Almogaz/Twitter

Photo Credit: Almogaz/Twitter

By Patrick Goodenough.

Some supporters of Egypt’s ousted Islamist president directed their wrath at the country’s Christian minority Wednesday, in what activists described as “the worst coordinated attacks on Egypt’s Coptic community in modern history.”

Largely eclipsed by the military’s crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood protest camps in Cairo and resulting loss of life, more than 20 churches in a number of provinces were reported to have been targeted for arson and other attacks.

Through the day news reports and social media posts drew attention to individual incidents and it soon became apparent that a concerted campaign of coordinated attacks was underway. Most of the targeted churches were Coptic Orthodox, but Catholic churches were also attacked as well as at least one Protestant church.

One of the groups monitoring the situation through contacts on the ground, the Australian Coptic Movement Association (ACM), released a list of 16 churches and related sites attacked, and said the true figure could reach 40.

Those it listed included six churches and the house of a parish priest in Minya province, south-west of Cairo, among them a Church of the Virgin Mary which the ACM reported had been “totally demolished.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Bryan Denton

Photo Credit: Bryan Denton

Islamists Debate Their Next Move in Tense Cairo

By David. D. Kirkpatrick.

Gathering Thursday morning around a mosque used as a morgue for hundreds killed the day before, many Islamists waited confidently for a surge of sympathetic support from the broader public. But it failed to materialize.

With their leaders jailed or silent, Islamists reeled in shock at the worst mass killing in Egypt’s modern history. By Thursday night, health officials had counted 638 dead and nearly 4,000 injured, but the final toll was expected to rise further.

A tense quiet settled over Cairo as the city braced for new protests by supporters of the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, after the Friday Prayer. The new government authorized the police to use lethal force if they felt endangered.

Many of those waiting outside the makeshift morgue talked of civil war. Some blamed members of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority for supporting the military takeover. A few argued openly for a turn to violence.

“The solution might be an assassination list,” said Ahmed, 27, who like others refused to use his full name for fear of reprisals from the new authorities. “Shoot anyone in uniform. It doesn’t matter if the good is taken with the bad, because that is what happened to us last night.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Muslim Brotherhood ‘Taking Anger Out’ on Christians (+video)

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In the wake of the military coup in Egypt earlier this month, media reports frequently recounted the violent clashes between the military and supporters of the ousted Muslim Brotherhood regime of Mohammed Morsi. What is not often reported, however, is the brutal treatment of Coptic Christians, usually at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Members of the Muslim Brotherhood have taken their anger out specifically on Christians because many Christians wanted the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi out of power and were speaking out, including the Coptic pope,” said Jerry Dykstra, spokesman for Open Doors USA, one of the leading organizations reaching out to the persecuted Christian church.

“So in the last three weeks or so, we’ve seen Christians targeted, especially a Coptic priest who was killed in northern Sinai. An Egyptian businessman was killed and beheaded in northern Sinai. Churches were also burned and Christians were driven out of their communities,” Dykstra told WND. “Whenever things get bad, Christians are almost doubly in the spotlight and the crosshairs and we’re seeing this now as things get even worse.”

Dykstra says Coptics had good reason to want the Morsi regime removed from power.

“They were being more marginalized than ever before. Of course, they had no protection from anybody. They were sort of on their own, so there was more violence against Christians. There was more use of the blaspheming laws. There was real concern of the Muslim Brotherhood putting together Sharia law down the road,” said Dykstra, who saw the major dilemmas facing Christians when he was in Egypt last year.

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Graham: Why is Obama Silent While Iran Tortures American Pastor? (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeOne of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders wants to know why President Obama has remained silent as Iran tortures an American pastor held captive in one of the Islamic republic’s most notorious prisons.

Franklin Graham, the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse, told Fox News the imprisonment and torture of Pastor Saeed Abedini is a blatant example of “religious intolerance.”

“Many in the international community are expressing outrage over this blatant example of religious intolerance,” Graham said. “I ask that our government do the same and demand that Pastor Saeed Abedini be released and allowed to return home to his wife and family in the United States.”

Graham said Abedini’s wife, Naghmeh, is terrified to hear reports of her husband’s physical condition.

“Naghmeh worries that she and her two young children may never see Saeed again,” he told Fox News.

Read more from this story HERE.