MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Qur’an Sura 9:29-30, “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, even if they are of the People of the Book … the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!”

NewsMax – “Islamist gunmen who seized hundreds of gas plant workers in the Sahara told Algerian staff they would not harm Muslims but would kill Western hostages they called ‘Christians and infidels’, a local man who escaped said on Thursday.

In a rare eyewitness account of Wednesday’s dawn raid deep in the desert, a local man employed at the facility told Reuters the militants appeared to have good inside knowledge of the layout of the complex and used the language of radical Islam.

‘The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels,’ Abdelkader, 53, said by telephone from his home in the nearby town of In Amenas. ‘We will kill them, they said.’

His voice choking with emotion – ‘I’m a lucky man,’ he said over the sound of children playing and a television relaying the latest news – Abdelkader described how he managed to escape along with many of the hundreds of Algerians initially detained.

He asked that his family name be withheld.

‘I am still choked, and stressed,’ he said, adding that he feared many of his foreign colleagues may have died. ‘The terrorists seemed to know the base very well,’ he said, ‘Moving around, showing that they knew where they were going.’

The kidnappers said they were retaliating for last week’s French offensive in neighbouring Mali, and demanded that Paris call off the operation and that Algeria withdraw cooperation.” Read more.

AP: Algerian Assault Ends Crisis, 19 Hostages Dead – “In a bloody finale, Algerian special forces stormed a natural gas complex in the Sahara desert on Saturday to end a standoff with Islamist extremists that left at least 19 hostages and 29 militants dead. Dozens of foreign workers remain unaccounted for, leading to fears the death toll could rise… Algeria’s response to the crisis was typical of the country’s history in confronting terrorists, favoring military action over negotiation, which caused an international outcry from countries worried about their citizens.” Read more.