MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

BBC – “A Swiss woman has been abducted in the rebel-held northern Malian city of Timbuktu, officials and residents say.

The woman, a Christian missionary in her 40s called Beatrice, was taken from her house by armed men, residents said.

Most foreigners fled Timbuktu after Tuareg and Islamist rebels seized the town early this month in the aftermath of a military coup.

The kidnap comes amid concern the area could offer a safe haven to an al-Qaeda branch operating in the country.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim), the network’s North African wing, has links to the Islamist rebels. The group is already holding 13 Westerners.

‘Beatrice, a Swiss national, was abducted this Sunday at Timbuktu by armed men,’ local official Mohamed Ould Hassen told AFP.

One resident of the town told the news agency that they saw six armed men take the woman.

‘They shouted ‘Allah Akbar’ [God is great],’ the resident added.” Read more.

Flashback: Mali: Christian Leader Beheaded as Islamists Terrorize Country, Create List of All Christians They Intend to Execute by Beheading – “A Christian leader has been beheaded and others are being threatened with similar treatment as Islamic militants run amok in Mali, West Africa. Christians have fled the town of Timbuktu in the north of the country where harsh Sharia Law has already been imposed amid reports that churches in Gao, 200 miles to the east, have been completely destroyed… ‘We have escaped in the wake of horrible death threats as the Islamists have a list of all the Christians in Timbuktu whom they intend to execute by beheading.'” Read more.

It was only a matter of time …

Sudan Tribune – “(KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese national assembly on Monday adopted a resolution designating the country’s southern neighbour as an enemy state in the latest sign of escalation between the two sides.

‘We consider the government of South Sudan an enemy and Sudanese state institutions must treat it as such,’ according to the text read by Kamal Obeid who chairs the defense and security committee in parliament.

The legislative body’s speaker Ahmed Ibrahim al-Taher also announced that his country wants the ruling party in South Sudan toppled by any means necessary.

‘We declare that we will confront the [Sudan People Liberation Movement] SPLM until we end its rule of the South, and will work to gather our resources to realize this aim,’ al-Taher said.

‘We are in a battle that does not finish with the recovery of Heglig, but with an end to the danger that comes from South Sudan’ he added.

It remains unclear what implications the decision will carry as the power to declare war lies with the president according to the constitution. Only then can the parliament endorse it according to the 2005 constitution.” Read more.

Flashback: North Sudan: Islamist Government Launches Air Strikes Against Churches and Schools in the Nuba Mountains – “After Khartoum denied that it had bombed civilians earlier this month, Sudanese aerial strikes last week were aimed at church buildings and schools in Kauda, South Kordofan state, a humanitarian aid worker said… Humanitarian agencies consider the Islamic government’s targeting of civilians in the Nuba Mountains, which has a large Christian population, an ‘ethnic cleansing’ against non-Arab peoples …” Read more.

Flashback: North Sudan: Christianity No Longer an Accepted Religion, Muslims Attack Christians Trying to Rebuild Church – “Emboldened by government calls for a Sudan based on Islamic law since the secession of South Sudan, Muslims long opposed to a church near Khartoum have attacked Christians trying to finish constructing their building, sources said… laiming that Christianity was no longer an accepted religion in the country, Muslims in the Hay al Sawra, Block 29 area of Omdurman West on Aug. 5 attacked SCOC members who were constructing the church building, the sources said. ‘We do not want any presence of churches in our area,’ shouted members of the mob as they threw stones at the Christians, the sources said.” Read more.

Flashback: North Sudan: President Al-Bashir Moves Forward with Rewriting the Country’s Constitution to Implement Sharia Law – “Sudanese leader Omer Hassan Al-Bashir is moving forward with rewriting the country’s constitution to implement Shariah law, according to reports from organizations with links inside the Muslim-dominated nation. International Christian Concern’s North Africa specialist Jonathan Racho says that a Shariah-compliant constitution will mean more suffering for Sudan’s remaining Christians. ‘This new law (Shariah compliant constitution) is going to affect a significant number of Christians who live in places like Khartoum (the capital city). There are still a significant number of Christians in Sudan,’ Racho said.” Read more.

By Stoyan Zaimov, The Christian Post – “Reports of Islamic extremists attacking people of others faiths in India and Pakistan have been growing in recent years, resulting in beatings and even beheadings.

On March 30, at a Christian church in the West Bengal state of India, a 65-year-old woman widow was beaten after Islamist extremists forced their way into the church, Compass Direct News reported. The 11 or so members of the church were attacked simply for gathering and worshipping Christ, and the Islamists called them “pagans” as they continuously kicked and beat them.

In the same area of Nutangram earlier in March, a 22-year old woman was driven from her predominantly Muslim village after she thanked Christ for being healed from an illness – apparently, even her Muslim parents joined in the subsequent attack by Islamists who wanted her and her beliefs out of the village.

The religious persecution is reportedly just as bad in neighboring Pakistan, where Christians are targeted even by government authorities. Currently, a Christian mother of five, Asia Bibi, is on death row for allegedly blaspheming the name of the prophet Muhammad two years ago, an accusation filed by co-workers at a field she was working on.

Bibi insists all she was doing was defending her Christian faith, but has been jailed nonetheless – and even if the Pakistani court finds her not guilty and releases her, many Islamic leaders have placed a bounty on her head …” Read more.

AP – “KANO, Nigeria – Witnesses say three people were injured following a bomb attack in a north Nigeria city that was the scene of a massive assault by a radical Islamist sect in January.

The attack happened Sunday night in a Christian neighborhood of Kano, the largest city in Nigeria’s Muslim north.

A military spokesman said the attack caused no injuries, but local witnesses said three people were wounded.

The bomb apparently was hidden inside of a drinking can. A January attack by members of the Boko Haram sect saw gunmen throw similar explosives.

That January attack killed at least 185 people.

Boko Haram is waging an increasingly bloody fight against Nigeria’s weak central government in its effort to enact strict Shariah law across the multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people and free its imprisoned members.” Source – FOX News.

Revelation 6:9-10, “And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”

By Ed West, The Telegraph – “This week’s issue of the Spectator is very important and worth buying – ie I’m in it, arguing that Britain should take action to alleviate the suffering of Iraq’s Christians, if necessary by offering sanctuary (no link, I’m afraid: you’ll just have to stump up the cash).

I met with three Iraqis who have been refused asylum in this country, all of whom had been threatened by Islamists back home. One had lost his shop to jihadi violence, another a brother. The Home Office wants to deport them back to Iraq.

Of two million Iraqi refugees currently outside of the country, some 30 per cent are minorities, mostly Christians, according to the UN: the bulk of them in Syria, Jordan and Turkey, unable to work and living in desperate poverty. Many in Syria now fear that it will become another Iraq, with Christians caught in the crossfire between rival Islamic communities.

The Christian population of Iraq has declined from over one million in 2003 to below 400,000 today. Overall some 1,000 Christians have been murdered since the 2003 invasion, and over 60 churches have been firebombed – the worst single incident being the October 21, 2010 massacre of 60 men, women and children at the Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, which alerted the world to their suffering. Two weeks later Islamists detonated 11 bombs in Christian suburbs of Baghdad, killing five Christians and wounding 33, including a four-month-old baby.” Read more.

‘Digital Journal’ Op-Ed: In the line of fire — The plight of Middle Eastern Christians – “As followers of the Christian faith in the United States and throughout the Western world celebrate the culmination of Holy Week with Easter, their counterparts in the Middle East find themselves under fire and on the run for their lives – literally. The Christians of the Middle East are in great peril. Christians in that part of the world are being subjected to an unprecedented religious cleansing at the hands of Islamic extremists who have declared jihad against them.” Read more.

By Nina Shea, Hudson Institute – “In recent years, we’ve begun to brace ourselves for news of bombings, burnings, and other attacks on churches full of Christian worshipers on religious holy days — for example, in Nigeria, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Ethiopia. This violence comes out of the growing community of Salafi Muslims, adherents of the radical brand of Islam that is Saudi Arabia’s official doctrine and which Saudi Arabia exports throughout the Sunni world. We’ve also come to expect the willful blindness of the Obama administration about the religious implications of these horrific events. Last weekend’s Easter Sunday was no exception.

On Easter morning, a Protestant church in Kaduna, Nigeria, was targeted by a suicide car bombing that killed 39 and wounded dozens, apparently the handiwork of Boko Haram, the Salafi network whose stated aim is to turn Africa’s largest country into a sharia state. Last Christmas, Boko Haram had bombed St. Theresa’s Catholic Church outside the capital Abuja killing 44 worshipers, as well as attacked various Christian churches in the towns of Jos, Kano, Gadaka, and Damaturu.

Four days have now passed and there has been no official comment from the Obama administration about this most recent monstrous example of anti-Christian persecution. However, on April 8, that is, Easter, Secretary Clinton did manage to issue one press release. It announced that ‘today we celebrate the history, impact and culture of Romani people’ (formerly called ‘gypsies’), and inveighed against Europe, demanding that it become ‘more inclusive.’ But for the northern Nigerian Christians savagely attacked on one of their most important religious days, there has not been a word of condolence.

Even worse, the day after the Nigeria church bombing, at a forum on U.S. policy toward Nigeria held at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson — overlooking Boko Haram’s self-proclaimed identity, pattern of behavior, statements and very name, which means ‘Western education is a sin’ — publicly denied that Boko Haram has religious motives. He went out of his way to stress: ‘Religion is not driving extremist violence in . . . northern Nigeria.’

Carson is articulating official U.S. policy.” Read more.

Flashback: Washington Times: Obama Administration Silent While Saudi Grand Mufti Targets Christianity, ‘Ignores These Types Of Provocations At Its Peril’ – “If the pope called for the destruction of all the mosques in Europe, the uproar would be cataclysmic. Pundits would lambaste the church, the White House would rush out a statement of deep concern, and rioters in the Middle East would kill each other in their grief. But when the most influential leader in the Muslim world issues a fatwa to destroy Christian churches, the silence is deafening.” Read more.

Flashback: Obama’s Christian Problem – White House Overlooks Christian Persecution While Pandering to Islam – “The Obama administration has been obsessed with Muslim outreach and recently tried to mend fences with the Jewish community. Given the state of the world, however, the White House ought to be focused on helping the world’s oppressed Christians. The United States has been wary to intervene in matters affecting Christians in the Middle East for fear of validating terrorist narratives that the West is engaged in a new crusade against Islam. The result of this passive policy has been to allow Islamic extremists increasingly to dominate the debate, often with tragic consequences.” Read more.

In a 2007 Frontpage interview, Bill Warner, director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam, stated that “Jihad destroyed a Christian Middle East and a Christian North Africa… The history of political Islam is the destruction of Christianity in the Middle East, Egypt, Turkey and North Africa. Half of Christianity was lost.” Today, as Islamic radicalization rears its ugly head once more, it now appears that the Beast that was is intent on finishing the job once and for all. Yet, as the CBN segment below is quick to point out, “this widespread persecution is largely ignored by the mainstream media” …

Flashback: The Christian Era in the Middle East is Over, ‘Will Be Completely Green, the Colour of Islam’ – “In Revelation 6:8 John describes the ‘fourth horseman of the Apocalypse’ as being ‘chlōros’, literally translated as ‘green’. Green is the official color of Islam and is believed to have been Mohammed’s favorite. The ‘fourth horseman’ is described as having power over the fourth part of the earth. I don’t believe that it is a mere coincidence that Islam today has dominion over a fourth part of the earth.” Read more.

John 16:2b, “… the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing a holy service for God.”

BY EMEKA MAMAH & SAM EYOBOKA – “KANO – Islamist sect, Boko Haram, has threatened to bring down the Federal Government led by President Goodluck Jonathan within three months. Purported leader of the sect said this in his second video posted on the Internet yesterday.

The 14 minutes, two seconds video of Abubakar Shekau seen on YouTube was in response to Jonathan’s comments while in South Korea, about two weeks ago, that the Boko Haram phenomenon would be under control by the middle of this year.

The sect’s threat came even as police yesterday confirmed that the death toll from an attack by unknown gunmen suspected to be members of the Islamist group on a town along Nigeria’s border with Cameroon has risen to no fewer than 10. Boko Haram’s attacks have left over 1,000 people dead since mid-2009. Apart from the latest attack in Borno, about 46 people died following bomb attack on residents of Kaduna on Easter day.

Christians from the 17 Southern states of the country had at an extraordinary meeting in Lagos on Wednesday appealed to the Northern elite, including religious leaders and politicians to rise to the challenges of insecurity which is capable of breaking up the country…

‘You, Jonathan, cannot stop us; instead we will devour you in the three months like you are boasting,’ Shekau said in the video entitled ‘Message to Goodluck Jonathan’. He was flanked by four masked men holding rifles as he spoke.

‘We are proud soldiers of Allah; we will never give up as we fight the infidels. We will emerge as winners … we will finish you and end your government,’ Shekau said in Arabic and the Hausa languages…

In the preamble of the message, Shekau vowed that it must destroy Christians and Christianity in Nigeria particularly those killing Muslims in Nigeria just as it said it will also kill all Muslims aiding the arrest and harassment of its members.

Shekau further said: ‘If death is your worldly gain, for us, it is eternal victory to die working for Allah. Our joy is to die in Jihad for Allah against infidels like you…

We are not doing physical human service, but Allah’s work … We are not afraid because we are not doing man’s work but Allah’s work …'” Read more.