ishtartv.com-
CNN
By Greg Botelho
0157
GMT (0857 HKT) April 25, 2015
Several
of the world's worst terrorist groups, like ISIS and Al-Shabaab, aim to create societies governed by
strict, distorted versions of Sharia law.
That
means anyone who doesn't subscribe to such extremist views are enemies and in
danger -- Christians included.
Of
course, Christians aren't the only ones who have suffered at the hands of such
organizations. For example, most victims of ISIS are fellow Muslims who refuse
to go along with the ISIS worldview and ruthless tactics.
Still,
there's ample evidence that Christians have been targeted. The latest came Friday,
when an Italian prosecutor revealed that a network of Pakistanis associated
with al Qaeda talked about attacking the Vatican back in March 2010.
"This
is ... a reminder about the world we're in right now," U.S. Rep. John
Delaney, D-Maryland, told CNN on Friday. "...I do think there's a larger
narrative about Christian persecution (by) militant groups around the
world."
This
attack wasn't carried out, but many others have been.
Some
acts are not centrally organized but are no less horrific, such as reports that
Muslim
migrants threw 12 Christians off a boat in the Mediterranean Sea.
Other
deadly acts and alleged plots have been blamed on established terror groups,
including these recent examples:
April:
Man planned to attack French churches
Sid
Ahmed Ghlam asked for an ambulance to come to his Paris home on Sunday after
(he claimed) he accidentally shot himself in the thigh.
Besides
getting medical help, Ghlam was arrested after authorities found four
Kalashnikov guns, a revolver, ammunition, police armbands and more in his car
and residence, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said on Wednesday. They also
turned up "documents in Arabic mentioning al Qaeda and ISIS" and
correspondence with someone in Syria "asking him to target a church."
Prime
Minister Manuel Valls later went to a church in the Paris suburb of Villejuif,
one of the at least two such
Christian places of worship that Ghlam allegedly targeted.
While
he didn't elaborate, Molins said that the satellite navigation system in
Ghlam's car -- which included a loaded Kalashnikov and more -- had one church's
location plugged in.
It's
not clear what group, if any, Ghlam was working with or possibly getting orders
from. Still, authorities flatly characterized him as a terrorist -- linking him
to the death of 32-year-old Aurelie Chatelain, whom Molins called the region's
first victim of terrorism since the Charlie Hebdo massacre and kosher market
siege in January.
Regardless
of whether Ghlam is ever convicted in Chatelain's killing, it appears unlikely
that he'll be able to commit more violence anytime soon.
"A
terrorist attack has been foiled," French President Francois Hollande
said.
April:
ISIS video shows beheadings of Ethiopian Christians
ISIS
has turned its beheadings of hostages into horror shows, producing propaganda
videos seemingly aimed at producing the maximum amount of terror.
What
set the one from April apart were the number of people killed and that they
were Christians from Ethiopia.
Ethiopia's
government said Monday that 30 of its citizens were among two groups of
prisoners shown being beheaded in Libya in a video released a day earlier,
according to the Ethiopian News Agency.
That
39-minute video shows one set of captives killed on a beach along the
Mediterranean Sea, while the other group is taken hundreds of miles away, to
southern Libya.
"All
praise be to Allah, the Lord and cherisher of the world and may peace and
blessings be upon the Prophet Mohammed," the video's narrator says in
Arabic. "To the nation of the cross, we are back again on the sands, where
the companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, have stepped on before,
telling you: Muslim blood that was shed under the hands of your religion is not
cheap."
The
same video brazenly claims that ISIS has been merciful to Christians in Iraq --
by giving them the choice of paying a fine if they refuse to convert to Islam.
But not all have taken this offer, according to a different speaker.
"The
Islamic State has offered the Christian community this many times and set a
deadline for this," this speaker says, using the name ISIS calls itself.
"But the Christians never cooperated."
April:
Al-Shabaab militants single out Christians in Kenya
Everyone
at Kenya's Garissa University College suffered in some way when a handful
of Al-Shabaab gunmen stormed the campus early this month.
But
death was reserved for Christians.
According
to AFP, the terrorists separated students by religion -- allowing Muslims to
leave and killing Christians. Nightmare accounts soon emerged, like that of
Cynthia Cherotich, who told CNN that she he hid in her closet when gunmen burst
in and called out two of her roommates.
"(The
attackers) told them if you don't know to read to them in the Muslim word, ...
then you lie down," recalled Cherotich, who refused to come out for two
days. "And then, if you know, you go to the other side."
This
tactic of separating non-Muslims from Muslims mirrors what Al-Shabaab attackers
did in December at a
quarry in the Kenyan village of Kormey, where at least 36 were killed,
according to the Kenyan Red Cross.
One
of Al-Shabaab's explicit aims is to turn Somalia, its home
base, into a fundamentalist Islamic state, according to the Council of Foreign
Relations. But that's not its only apparent goal, as the group has increasingly
branched out -- including into neighboring Kenya, which is 80% Christian -- to
inflict pain and terror.
After
the the Kenya university attack, which left nearly 150 people dead, Nadif Jama,
Garissa's regional governor, dismissed Al-Shabaab's claims that it only kills
non-Muslims as "a tricky way of doing business."
"The
fallacy and satanic mindset of Al-Shabaab is that, in Somalia, they kill
Muslims and Somalis," Jama said, claiming the group's militants are
"bent on nothing but destruction. ... That is something we need to
fight."
March:
Suicide bombers strike in Pakistan
Two suicide blasts
rocked a Christian community in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore,
killing at least 14 people and wounding scores more, according to officials.
And
that's just the beginning, pledged the Pakistani Taliban.
One
of the blasts left behind panicked residents, twisted metal and shattered glass
outside a church compound in the Nishtar Colony of Lahore, according to video
aired by CNN affiliate GEO News.
Afterward,
Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan claimed responsibility for the
carnage and promised more such attacks until Sharia law is implemented in
Pakistan.
These
blasts recalled
one from September 2013, when 81 people died in a suicide bombing at the All
Saints of Church of Pakistan in Peshawar.
Two
attackers burst into the church filled with about 500 people right as services
concluded, blowing themselves up, according to the Protestant diocese. Choir
members and children attending Sunday school were among the dead.
In a
subsequent statement, the Rev. Humphrey S. Peter, the bishop of Peshawar,
called the attack a "total failure" of official efforts to protect
minorities such as Christians, who make up less than 3% of Pakistan's
population.
February:
Egyptian Coptic Christians killed on a Libyan beach
Sadly,
the shock of the mass killings of the Ethiopian Christians in April may have
been dulled simply because of a nearly identical atrocity a few weeks before.
ISIS
released a five-minute video in February showing the mass
murder of Coptic Christians from Egypt.
Produced
by the Islamic State's propaganda wing al-Hayat Media, the video shows
black-clad jihadists standing behind their victims on a Libyan beach. Some of
the hostages cry out "Oh God" and "Oh Jesus" as they are
pushed to the ground, just before they take their final breaths.
"The
sea you have hidden Sheikh Osama bin Laden's body in, we swear to Allah, we
will mix it with your blood," a masked man says in English before the
beheadings.
News
of this mass beheading emerged weeks after 21 Egyptian Christians were
kidnapped in two incidents in the Libyan coastal city of Sirte. The ISIS video
shows the beheading of around a dozen men, though Egyptian officials say all 21
kidnapped Christians were killed.
Egypt's
government responded with airstrikes on
10 targets used for training and storage in ISIS' Libyan stronghold of Derna,
according to Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.
"Avenging
Egyptian blood and punishing criminals and murderers is our right and
duty," the Egyptian military said in a statement that was broadcast on
state television.
February:
ISIS seizes more than 250 Assyrian Christians
Modern-day
Assyrians are a significant part of human history, tracing their roots back to
one of the earliest civilizations. Their ancestors were also some of the first
people to embrace Christianity in large numbers.
Now
the Assyrians are battling
ISIS for survival in their native Syria and Iraq.
This
fight came into focus in February, when the militant group took over villages
and took more than 260 Assyrians hostage in northeastern Syria, according to
Osama Edward, the founder of the Assyrian Human Rights Network.
Edward
expressed fears then that these Assyrians in Syria would meet the same fate as
others in neighboring Iraq.
Some
of the Assyrian
hostages taken in February have been released, but the fate of many more
remains unknown. Even those not in captivity face dire threats, given ISIS's
well-established reputation of offering little to no mercy to Christians.
Summer
2014: ISIS takes over Mosul, then Iraq's largest Christian city
The
number of Christians in Iraq has plummeted -- from 1.5 million some 20 years
ago to some 300,000 today, according to estimates from CAPNI, the largest
Christian relief organization in northern Iraq.
ISIS
isn't the only reason for this drop, but it certainly is a big one. The
militant group has been brazen in its onslaught in Iraq as well as Syria, with
Christians among its targets.
That
includes its taking
over Iraq's largest Christian city, the mostly Assyrian community of Qaraqosh,
in August 2014. ISIS has inflicted pain and suffering well beyond Qaraqosh,
though, like its capture and control of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. The
group's advance there prompted Christian families to flee rather than adhere to
the ultimatum of converting to Islam, paying a fine or facing "death by
sword."
Mark
Arabo, a Chaldean-American leader and spokesman for the group Ending Genocide
in Iraq, claims that Iraqi Christian children have been beheaded, mothers raped
and fathers killed by ISIS militants in recent months.
"This
is truly a living nightmare that's not going away," Arabo told CNN.
"Christianity in Mosul is dead, and a
Christian holocaust is in our midst."