Muslims in Syria have butchered 400 people in mass killing fields, and have also impregnated 3000 women through sex jihad. We have learned this information through our Middle East contact Sister Hatune Dogan, who we partnered with in order to rescue Christians in Syria and Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.
“Abd Alluhud tells his story driving to his farm, taking the regular route near Idlib and what he sees was so horrific; hundreds of bodies on the side of the road, all decapitated”, so reports Sister Hatune Dogan to Shoebat.com after she came back from her mission to aid Christians in Turkey where she interviewed several Christian refugees who came out of Syria.
Terrified of what he witnessed Alluhud later decided to take the long route to avoid the horrific scene. What he saw was the same: hundreds more bodies lined the road with dogs consuming the carcasses of slaughtered victims for whom the jihadist group Da’ish would dig a small pit, slice the neck and drain the neck in the pit making sure the bodies are bowing in the form of submission.
Shoebat.com obtained a video showing this very form of ritual slaughter:
Besides the dead, many of the living behave as if they are living dead; slaughter houses are everywhere, killing centers, people being baked alive, headless bodies, mass sex jihad and the kidnapping of young girls. Shoebat.com has obtained numerous videos of the testimonies of people in Syria recalling the horrors they have seen.
In the following video, a Christian woman describes how her own son was beheaded by Muslims and then buried by his murderers:
In this one video, a woman tells how multiple rebel groups were passing by her area searching for women to steal:
In this interview a woman recalls how a man was savagely decapitated with a knife:
In this video a witness recounts how an Alawite woman was stripped naked, forced to walk the streets, and then beaten almost to death:
Sister Hatune tells the story of 19 year old Muhammad A. who decided to defect after seeing his mate blow himself up in a suicide operation in Hidaya Hotel in Qamishlo on March 11, 2014 which killed 3 Christians amongst others.
Muhammad, who was designated to be the third to detonate lost hope that a martyr could be with virgins after seeing that the body of his previous suicide martyr colleague did not have his genital parts due to the explosion. “He was so distressed” Hatune reported to Shoebat.com, and “I didn’t have time enough to share the Good News of the Gospel with him because I know he would be willing to leave Islam” she said regrettably. He told Hatune of the training centers in Orfa, Ghazi Antab and Antakia (Antioch) set up by the Turkish government for more terrorists to be sent to Syria.
They have set up the “Khuda (God) Party” which is aligned with Daish (ISIS) composed of Kurdish rebels and foreigners. In many mosques, the call of the Imam was to send young girls for Jihad Nikah (pleasure marriages) for the fighters. Hatune told Shoebat.com that at least 3000 girls have been sent home pregnant and new waves of fresh shipment will be sent to sexually encourage the fighters.
The brutality never stops, nor do the endless testimonies of Syrians retelling the violence they have seen. Shoebat.com discovered this video of a man lamenting on how Muslims butchered his wife and numerous of his relatives and friends, including a one year old infant:
Mass decapitations are also being done almost in a systematic level, as this man describes in this video:
“Europe and the U.S. rejects many of these Christians fleeing”, reported Dogan to us adding, “an entire Christian family of 14 drowned in a boat trying to escape to Greece.” Christians have been reduced from 4 to 1.5 million in Syria. In Raqa, where the ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) have completely taken over and there are virtually no Christians left. Sounding church bells has been outlawed and non-Sunnis must pay 17 grams of gold for Jizzieh tax. Anyone who fails to pay, they must then provide a daughter and if no daughter is available, his wife. One Shiite lady who failed to cover her arms was given 40 lashes in public.
“All the reports about U.N. relief to Christians is failing” said Dogan adding “out of all the trucks very little was sent to Christians, the Kurds and others got everything.”
While the world neglects the poor Christians in the Middle East, Rescue Christians made sure that they received generous provisions and care. Dogan sent donations provided her by Rescue Christians ensuring every victim was Christian.
“We also rescued 2 more kidnapped Christians on this trip” she told us joyfully. The Christians were sold to Kurds who sold them at a $1000 each to Dogan’s affiliates.
Sister Hatune Dogan with money to give to poor and impoverished Christians
Sister Hatune Dogan with poor Christian family in Turkey
Sister Hatune Dogan giving money to poor Christian man
Sister Hatune Dogan giving money to poor Christian women
Sister Hatune Dogan, organizing the giving of money to poor Christians
These pictures are a witness to the work we do in Syria to help the persecuted, and protect them from Islamic attacks and deplorable violence. We cannot continue to save Christians without your help. This is your opportunity to support us with the absolute knowledge that you are saving lives. Please donate to save Christian lives in Syria and Iraq.
Saif Al-Adlubi told the story when the Egyptian butcher would examine the row of people who were waiting their execution. Al-Adlubi witnessed at least two Armenians who were waiting their turn to be slaughtered since no one paid their ransom, the sum of $100,000 each.
“He grabbed the neck of one elderly Armenian Christian”, says Al-Adlubi, which the Egyptian butcher was about to slaughter. The Egyptian butcher felt the neck of the Christian Armenian saying “you’re an aged man and your neck is soft and I don’t have to sharpen my knife for you”. Others might be more difficult depending on their physique.
Saif Al-Adlubi tells of his miraculous escape to the Turkish village of Rehaniyeh from Syria. He was probably one of the few survivors who sounded the alarm on one of the gruesome systematic human extermination centers carried out by the Takfiri Jihadist group ISIS.
Rescue Christians translated an interview with Al-Adlubi:
(Also see references [here] and from Al-Jazeera [here] and others [here])
The prison centers where the ISIS (Da’ish) controls have become miniatures of what was during the Nazi SS extermination camps, except the ISIS carries out the extermination in a much more horrific way. Da’ish transforms the prisons into kangaroo courts with systematic slaughterhouses and killing centers to exterminate Christians and Muslims who disagree with the Takfiri ideology. Once they are found guilty, the way they deal with the victims was as if they were cattle.
The ISIS stands for The Islamic group of Iraq and Syria. ISIS is also known in Middle East circles as Da’ish. Rescue Christians obtained footage of another slaughterhouse from one Syrian Christian named Kamil Toume to confirm the claims.
It all adds up. Toume confirmed what was told by Al-Adlubi and he provided some leaked footage to prove it:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c1c_1395018660
This is the Siba’ District Human Slaughterhouse in Homs, Syria.
Rescue Christians aided Toume’s plight to escape the fate of his father and sister after they were ritually sacrificed and cremated by Al-Nusra Islamist rebels in Duwair near Homs.
“You never heard of Umm Muhammad slaughterhouse?” Kamil told us when we asked him to comment on the story of Saif Al-Adlubi.
“What do you mean by Umm Muhammad Slaughterhouse”? We asked in unbelief.
The footage is from two separate slaughterhouses, one in Bayyada and the other is even 3 years old in Al-Siba’.
Slaughterhouses has been going on for 3 years in Syria.
Al-Adlubi is Muslim fundamentalist who joined the FSA (Free Syrian Army) and was a militant and a media agent for the FSA. He was captured by Da’ish and tells his horrific tale explaining how he has never experienced or seen such horror under the Assad Regime. He was one of few that made it out when the Syrian militia finally defeated the Da’ish rebels in that specific prison center.
“How could I be considered Kafir (heathen) if I pray and fast?” he asked the prison official as he tells his story to several Arabic news agencies.
“you are “murtad” [apostate]” answered the official.
“I asked him, what is my destiny. I want to get a closure. What is it, a year two years in prison?”
“He said in Arabic “Abshir Bithabih”, in English, “Rejoice, you will be sacrificed”.
According to Dai’sh Islamic theology, he would be sacrificed as a martyr by being slaughtered for his sin. This is not the same fate for Christians who in their view will end up in eternal hellfire.
Before he was freed, Al-Adlubi saw the bodies of young men who were systematically slaughtered and disemboweled.
“The slaughterhouse was on a hill. It is secluded and is void of any homes nearby” says Al-Adlubi. “I witnessed lifeless bodies hanging upside down as if they were slaughtered sheep,” he added.
“In the center of the slaughterhouse is a huge Egyptian about two meters high. He was the one doing the slaughtering”
The Egyptian butcher examines the row of the young and old men who were about to be slaughtered: Armenian Christians, Syrian Christians, Shiites and even Sunnis. Each had to be physically examined. They are decapitated from the root of their necks, their chest cavities are opened and disemboweled and hung upside down. The neck of the aged Christian Armenian man was a simple one.
The stories told by Al-Adlubi and Toume adds up. Toume sent us some footage that circulated the Syrian community after the human slaughterhouse finally ended, and the ugly remaining evidence was revealed when Umm Muhammad’s slaughterhouse in the Siba’ district in Homs was busted by Syrian police 3 years ago in August 2011. This was during the infancy of the revolution in Syria. Umm Muhammad’s slaughterhouse was not operated by Da’ish but by the FSA (Free Syrian Army) during its infancy. The slaughterhouses were in progress for years and only the future will show the extent of such operations. We have also reported in the past how a rare disease (Kuru) that infected Syrians which can only be contracted as a result of cannibalism.
Umm Muhammad was a Sunni woman in charge of dismembering human bodies. In the footage, it can be seen with human bodies being chopped up exactly as is done in a cattle slaughterhouse. What is striking is the way of the superior care in the chipping of the body parts without having clear traces of torture, which indicates that the potential target was to pile the body parts for an unknown reason. The table is the type used in a morgue or in Forensic Medicine.
Al-Adlubi’s story also checks out from footage obtained from Al-Bayyada, another slaughterhouse, which Rescue Christians was able to obtain footage from. And just as Al-Adlubi stated, they were hanging upside down, headless, like slaughtered sheep. The heads were removed from the root of the chest cavity just as Al-Adlubi stated when describing how the Egyptian was doing his meticulous methods and how Toume described the Umm-Muhammad slaughterhouse in Al-Siba’ district.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8f7_1395016026
This is the Al-Bayada Human Slaughterhouse
Saif Al-Adlubi’s nightmare was over when Syrian civilian militia finally swarmed into the Da’ish prison in Edbana.
We report this story because of the silence on the systematic killing of Christians, Shiite minorities and even Sunni Muslims in Syria who disagree with the Takfirist theology. The story is reminiscent to the initial reporting on the extermination of European Jewry and other minorities when little coverage was given to the truth in these days.
We predict that history will repeat itself in the case of Christians in Syria and Iraq. When Dr. Gerhart Riegner, the representative of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva, Switzerland, learned what was going on from a German source. Riegner asked American diplomats in Switzerland to inform Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, one of America’s most prominent Jewish leaders, of the systematic killing centers. But the State Department, characteristically insensitive and influenced by anti-Semitism, decided not to inform Wise.
The rabbi nevertheless learned of Riegner’s terrible message from Jewish leaders in Great Britain. He immediately approached Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, who asked Wise to keep the information confidential until the government had time to verify it. Wise agreed and it was not until November 1942 that Welles authorized the release of Riegner’s message.
Wise held a press conference on the evening of November 24, 1942. The next day’s New York Times reported his news on its tenth page. Throughout the rest of the war, the Times and most other newspapers failed to give prominent and extensive coverage to the Holocaust.
In the case for Syria, history is repeating itself. Rescue Christians will do a press release for media interviews to speak to Mr. Toume and the plight of Syrian Christians and how his family were murdered by rebel forces in Syria.
The cruelty expressed by the Muslims in the Syrian slaughterhouses is reminiscent to the violence perpetuated by the Ottoman Turks.
For example, the Egyptian executioner who told the elderly Armenian man that his neck was soft and easy to cut parallels the hatred which the Ottoman Muslims expressed toward the Armenians. Today we have actual footage on how the extermination of the Armenians was carried out.
A German, who was present in the Armenian Genocide, was running an orphanage in the area of Moush where the Turks were conducting their massacres. When he asked a Turkish officer in charge if the Armenian children of the orphanage would be given guaranteed safe passage, the Turk replied:
You can take them with you, but being Armenians their heads may and will be cut off on the way. (1)
In the slaughterhouses in Syria, there are countless corpses, all severely mutilated and cut into parts. This is exactly what the Turks did to Christians in their infamous Genocide.
Turkish peasants seized entire multitudes of Armenians and cut their bodies into pieces while they were still alive. A letter written by an anonymous source recounts how Turkish farmers cut to pieces a large body of Armenian men with their farming tools:
In the valley of Beyhan Boghazi, six or seven hours’ distance from the town, they were attacked by a wild horde of Turkish peasants, and, in pursuance of the order, were all massacred with clubs, hammers, axes, scythes, spades, saws — in a word, with every implement that causes a slow and painful death. Some shore off their heads, ears, noses, hands, feet with scythes; others put out their eyes. …The bodies of the victims were left in pieces in the valley, to be devoured by the wild beasts. (2)
William Willard Howard, an eye-witness to the Armenian Genocide, actually described how the Turks mutilated and cut to pieces the bodies of Christians:
…the soles of his feet are held before an open fire until the flesh drops off. After that his tongue may be pulled out, or red hot irons thrust into his eyes. If he is not dead by this time he is hacked to pieces with knives. (3)
Samuel Gridley Howe, an American who helped the Greek Christians revolt against the Turkish occupation in the 19th century, described the massacre of the Greek Christians by the Turks as a literal slaughterhouse, with severed body parts and decapitated heads being found without number. He described one massacre of a Greek town as such:
[T]he Turkish troops gathered round the town, rushed in among the defenseless inhabitants, and begun to butcher all they found. …And a few hours were sufficient for all this; a few hours of rapine and murder had changed the beautiful town to a scene of utter devastation; to a slaughter-house, still steaming with the blood of thousands of all ages, and of both sexes, whose mutilated and headless bodies, lay in every direction about the streets (4)
The slaughterhouses in Syria are really centers for ritual human sacrifices. Rescue Christians even obtained footage to prove this as well:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6ad_1395015674
In the video, which is filmed at yet another unknown slaughterhouse, the executioner declares this prayer before making the slaughter:
In defense of the Sunnis O Lord, O Lord, We bring these offerings to you, O Lord. Please accept this sacrificial offering, O Lord. O Lord, accept this from us, accept this from us. In the name of Allah. Bismillah (In the name of Allah). Allahu Akbar
The victims could be shot or slaughtered, but one thing is true, these are ritualistic killings.
This can be deduced by paralleling the slaughterhouses in Syria to Islamic ideology in regards to shedding Christian blood, which can be observed in historical accounts. For example, Howe, an eyewitness to Turkish violence, recounted that the Muslim Turks “thought the blood of a Christian an acceptable offering to God.” (5)
Now, in conjunction with this statement, here is an account of John Eshoo, an Assyrian reverend who survived the Assyrian Genocide under the Turks, in which he refers to the carnage as a literal slaughter house and describes how the Muslims butchered the Christians in the same fashion as the system of animal sacrifice during the Islamic fasts:
The fearful place became literally a human slaughter house, receiving its speechless victims, in groups of ten and twenty at a time, for execution. … These helpless Assyrians marched like lambs to their slaughter, and they opened not their mouth, save by sayings “Lord, into thy hands we commit our spirits. The executioners began by cutting first the fingers of their victims, join by joint, till the two hands were entirely amputated. Then they were stretched on the ground, after the manner of the animals that are slain in the Fast, but these with their faces turned upward, and their heads resting upon the stones or blocks of wood Then their throats were half cut, so as to prolong their torture of dying, and while struggling in the agony of death, the victims were kicked and clubbed by heavy poles the murderers carried Many of them, while still laboring under the pain of death, were thrown into ditches and buried before their souls had expired. (6)
All of this sadism and cruelty was done in the fashion of an Islamic animal sacrifice, and in the Muslim religion, it is permitted that a human being replace the animal in the sacrificial rituals. This theology of human sacrifice is based upon the very ancient story of Khalid Abdullah al-Kasri, who ritually sacrificed Jaad bin Durham in the place of an animal on the Islamic holiday of The Festival of Sacrifice. He dragged Durham into a mosque, and before spilling his blood, proclaimed:
O people, sacrifice, Allah accepted your sacrifices. I am now sacrificing Jaad bin Durham.
The story is accepted as orthodox by several of the most forceful Muslim theologians during the history of Islam like Al-Shafi’, Ibin Tayymiya, Bukhari, Dhahabi, Ibin Al-Qiyam, Darami and Ibin Katheer.
This is the reality of Islam, it is a pagan and utterly depraved and sadistic religion. It takes the soul of a man and purges any remnants of human affection from his very being. Look to your own soul, and understand your own obligation to help the Christians from this horror. Please donate to save Christian lives in Syria.
(1) Moush: Statement by a German Eye-witness of Occurrences at Moush; communicated by the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, in Arnold Toynbee, The Treatmen of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, p. 89
(2) Angora: Extract from a letter, dated 16th September, 1915; appended to the memorandum (doc. 11), dated 15/28th October, 1915, from a well-informed source at Bukarest
(3) William Willard Howard, Horrors of Armenia, ch. 1, p. 6
(4) Samuel Gridely Howe, An Historical Sketch of the Greek Revolution, ch. 3, pp. 99-100, brackets and ellipses mine
(5) Howe, An Historical Sketch of the Greek Revolution, ch. 3, p. 100
(6) In Joel Euel Werda, The Flickering Light of Asia: or, the Assyrian Nation and Church, ch. 26, ellipses mine
In an interview with Xinhua, Gregory III Laham, Patriarch of the Church of Antioch and all East, saidthat the violence in Syria has displaced 450,000 Christian Syrians and has butchered more than a thousand of these blessed saints.
Everyone, these are the signs of a greater holocaust, the greatest in human history, as Keith Davies calls it.
This is why the time to act is now. It is all up to you, and your will power. You are in the position to now save a life. Donate now and save Christian lives.
Syria’s armed rebels just recently fired numerous mortar shells on a church in Syria’s Southern province of Daraa, slaughtering 12 people and injuring a great many others.
A horrific massacre of unfathomable cruelty and grisly violence has just taken place by fundamentalist Muslims in the Syrian village of Adra in which innocent people were butchered and children thrown down windows. One survivor recounted:
What is happening in Adra is unthinkable … Children are being slaughtered and thrown out of the windows. But no one is doing anything. The crisis in Syria continues in an environment where there is no international law, including those relating to the paramilitary operations.
Nizar Skif, chairman of the Union of Lawyers in Syria, spoke of reports of “sadism,” and of people being “thrown into the furnaces” and “houses burned with people inside.”
Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, while being disturbed by the violence executed in Adra,slammed Western powers for attempting to make ties with the Islamic Front, the jihadist group who committed these crimes:
The Islamic Front has proclaimed quite radical goals, although our western partners have been trying to establish ties with them and describe the front as an “acceptable power”, which possesses influence “on the ground,” …However, there’s some evidence which we consider reliable and which shows that when the front was being created, a possibility of Al-Nusra joining in was discussed. That did not happen only to save the front’s reputation, as Al-Nusra has been on terrorist organizations’ lists in the US and Europe.”
American mediators of the Geneva-2 peace talks on Syria, scheduled for January 22, have actually been holding meetings with the front’s representatives.
Muslims are butchering people, and America is not only indifferent, but is trying to forge alliances with them. How are we as a nation to help the persecuted Christians? We cannot rely on our government, thats for sure, but we, as free individuals, can do something now. Here is a chance where you, the reader, can save the lives of your fellow Christians. Donate now and save Christian lives.
One person said he escaped Adra “under a storm of bullets”, and he described how the murderers came to establish sharia courts and kill government employees:
They had lists of government employees on them … This means they had planned for it beforehand and knew who works in the governmental agencies. They went to the addresses they had on their list, forced the people out and subjected them to the so-called “Sharia trials.” I think that’s what they call it. They sentenced them to death by beheading.
A woman who also escaped the sadistic ambuscade “http://rt.com/news/adra-syria-massacre-witnesses-355/” target=”_blank”>recalled how she witnessed the decapitations of youths as old as twenty:
There was slaughter everywhere The eldest was only 20 years old; he was slaughtered. They were all children. I saw them with my own eyes. They killed fourteen people with a machete. I don’t know if these people were Alawites. I don’t know why they were slaughtered. They grabbed them by their heads and slaughtered them like sheep.
The jihadists entered a bakery and slaughtered everybody inside, as Kinda Shimat, Syria’s Social Affairs Minister, recounted:
Civilians told us that the workers of an Adra bakery were all executed and burned during the first hours of the attack. Whole families were massacred. We do not have an exact estimation of the number because we are unable to get into the town, but the number is high
They went into the police station and killed all of the civilians, and then butchered everyone in a hospital, as one witness said:
They killed everyone at the Adra Ummalia police station … And they killed everyone at the Adra Ummalia hospital where my sister works. She stayed alive only because she didn’t show up for work that day. There are about 200 people at the police station. They are civilians. The militants are hiding among them, using them as a shield to prevent the Army from bombing the police.
For many months now there have been plenty of headlines devoted to the unrest in the Middle East, notably in Egypt and Syria. What has been missing, however, is any significant media coverage of the ongoing anti-Christian persecutions in those two countries. The world was just deliberating at the UN-silence. Where is the outrage?
The media seems indifferent or fearful of criticizing the criminal and terrorist activities of Muslim extremists-or journalists get the story plain wrong. Glaring case in point: a recent BBC report, covering the rebel attack on the ancient Syrian Christian village of Maaloula, claimed that “the fighting in Maaloula is the first such attack on a notable Christian community since the start of the uprising. Residents of many Christian villages around Homs and Hama have been fleeing the violence along with members of other communities, but had not up until now been attacked themselves.”
Yet, young Christian girls are being raped and murdered, while Christian churches, monasteries, homes, and workplaces are being systematically destroyed. Syrian Catholic bishops have warned that their country is becoming a “second Iraq” owing to similar patterns of Church attacks and forced expulsion and kidnapping of Christians. During Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror, Iraq’s Christian population plummeted from 1.4 million to fewer than 300,000. Many of those Christian refugees settled in Syria, which was considered, at that time, a more tolerant country.
According to Church sources, the major industrial city of Homs, home to Syria’s largest Christian population, has borne the brunt of violence. Attacks on Christian churches, schools, convents, as well as homes and businesses, have caused a mass exodus. It is estimated that 50,000 Christians, about 90 percent of the Christian population of Homs, have fled to the mountains or have sought refuge in Lebanon. Those left behind cannot find work and earn money to support their families. Food has been scarce and unaffordable. Before the start of the fighting in Syria, the Christian community accounted for some 10 percent of the Syrian population of 22 million.
And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds.
Syrian Christians are starting to align with the regime of Bashar al Assad as extremist rebels form an increasing number of the anti-regime fighters. Worried about their churches and homes, Christians are organizing into volunteer units and fighting alongside the regular Syrian army. There is a sense of stalemate and a need for negotiation to end the conflict.
LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – France 24 carried the story late last week of “John” a Christian fighting in Assad’s forces. John was interviewed by the agency who wanted to know why Christians, originally neutral in the conflict, have started to gravitate towards the Assad regime.
Christians are a major minority in Syria making about 5 percent of the population. A few have sided with the rebels, however the majority have tried to remain neutral, worried that an unfavorable outcome could bring post-war repercussions.
While Christians may not be major supporters of the Assad regime, they distrust the jihadists whose publicly stated goal is to turn Syria into an Islamic state with conversion to Islam made compulsory.
To accomplish their mission, jihadist fighters have targeted clergy, ransacked churches and shrines, and killed some Christians in their efforts to terrorize Christian enclaves into submission. The Free Syrian Army, that arm of the rebels recognized by the United States and its allies does not endorse the tactics of the jihadists, and has on some occasions actually clashed with them. However, the Syrian uprising is hugely dependent on the influx of al Qaeda-linked fighters and cannot continue without them.
It is interesting to note that the perpetuators came from Iraq; if Saddam was still in power they would have never done this. From MTT:
Al-Qaida-linked Syrian rebels from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant sacked a Melkite Greek-Catholic Church in the Syrian town of al-Raqqa.
The Melkites follow the Roman Catholic pope but use the rituals of the Greek Orthodox. They have remained loyal to the Assad regime out of fear of heightened persecution by Islamic extremists.
Footage shown on al-Aan TV shows the rebels systematically disassembling the church. They tear down the cross on top of the church and replace it with a black jihadist flag. They chant “Allahu akbar!” and sing hymns throughout the operation.
The video also shows young children desecrating the cross taken from the church.
A Saudi militant is heard saying of the cross, “The ‘Nazarenes’ (Christians) worship it.” And a child is heard saying, “This is the ‘Messiah’ (Christ) they worship.”
An Armenian Orthodox church was also attacked.
Christian leaders such as Melkite Patriarch Gregory III have warned Syria’s Christian population could a major casualty should Assad fall and Syria descend into chaos.
“Enough with the intervention,” Gregory told the Catholic News Service in August. “It is fueling hatred, fueling criminality, fueling inhumanity, fueling fundamentalism, terrorism — all these things are the fruit of intervention. Enough!”
A study by IHS Jane’s found that nearly half of the 100,000 rebel fighters seeking to oust al-Assad are either jihadists or hardline Islamists. Of them, 10,000 fighters belong to Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate.
Rebels around al-Raqaa, located in north-central Syria, professed their allegiance to al-Qaida on Sept. 21, according to a video posted on social media and released by the Daily Mail. The rebels had been aligned with the Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA).
According to the BBC, the FSA is an umbrella group that includes numerous groups that act independently. Estimates suggest there are 1,000 bands of fighters in the conflict.
Concerns have been raised about funding the FSA due to lingering questions about connections to al-Qaida.
“It is no secret that we have ties with everybody, even the brothers in the Nusra Front, and we cooperate in many places,” FSA Gen. Abd Al-Baset Tawila said in a June 13 interview with Al-Jazeera Arabic translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “In all candidness, I would like to see a civilized state, with Islamic law. Let me give you an example. We would like our army, in the future, to have a clear Islamic nature.”
Ghastly attacks on Christians mocked as “Crusaders” in Syria continued unabated as Jihadists reportedly forced one man to convert to Islam at gunpoint and slit the throat of another Christian woman’s fiancé and then told her, “Jesus didn’t come to save him.”
Residents who fled from the ancient town of Maalula in Syria told AFP that jihadists ambushed the town last week and forced a man to convert to Islam at gunpoint.
“They arrived in our town at dawn… and shouted ‘We are from the Al-Nusra Front and have come to make lives miserable for the Crusaders,” said one woman identified as Marie in Damascus, where many people from Maalula fled after rebels first attacked that town on Sept. 4.
One of the most renowned Christian towns in Syria, many of Maalula’s approximately 5,000 residents speak Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. Rebels want to tighten their control of the town for its strategic value as a launching point to level attacks on the highway between the capital and Homs, a key regime supply route.
On Tuesday, Marie and hundreds of others in exile in Damascus, attended the burial of three Christian pro-regime militiamen who were killed in fighting.
Adnan Nasrallah, 62, told AFP that an explosion destroyed an archway just across from his house that leads into Maalula during the fighting last week.
“I saw people wearing Al-Nusra headbands who started shooting at crosses,” the Christian senior told the AFP. One of the shooters, he said, “put a pistol to the head of my neighbor and forced him to convert to Islam by obliging him to repeat ‘there is no God but God’…Afterwards they joked, ‘he’s one of ours now’.”
Nasrallah said he operated a restaurant, called Maalula, in the State of Washington in the U.S. for 42 years when he decided to return to Syria shortly before the uprising erupted in Syria in March 2011.
He said when the rebels came to town, his Muslim neighbors rejoiced. His sister Antoinette disputed that story, however, saying the people rejoicing were refugees from out of town.
Another Maalula resident, Rasha said the jihadists brutally murdered her fiancé Atef, who was a part of the town’s militia.
“I rang his mobile phone and one of them answered,” she said.
“Good morning, Rashrush,” a voice answered, calling her by her nickname according to AFP. “We are from the Free Syrian Army. Do you know your fiancé was a member of the shabiha (pro-regime militia) who was carrying weapons, and we have slit his throat?”
Rasha said the man told her Atef was asked to denounce his faith and convert to Islam and he refused.
“Jesus didn’t come to save him,” the rebel taunted.
